Qatar PM holds talks in Tehran, seeks to relaunch diplomacy

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DOHA— Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani visited Tehran on Thursday and discussed key issues, including the future of the Strait of Hormuz, with top Iranian officials in a bid to relaunch diplomacy to end the US-Iran war.

The visit comes as US President Donald Trump said Washington was not currently talking to Iran.
"We ‌don't want to speak to them. We're not looking to meet or anything," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after the White House said a US economic campaign against Tehran would continue until Iran decides to negotiate meaningfully.

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also his country’s foreign minister, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi discussed a proposed framework that includes the creation of a temporary shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a possible “joint project” to clear the strait of mines, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The two officials also reviewed “the latest developments in the regional situation along with the efforts being made to reduce escalation and create appropriate conditions for dialogue, contributing to the enhancement of regional security and stability”, the statement added.

Qatar has served as a back-channel negotiator for the warring parties and played a direct role in securing a ceasefire in June that briefly led to a cessation of hostilities.

Sheikh Mohammed later met separately with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

The visit comes as the war nears its seventh month, with fighting largely paused but no diplomatic breakthrough in sight. Both sides are at odds over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil supplies that Tehran has used as leverage.

“Qatar believes that dialogue and diplomatic solutions remain the optimal path for addressing disputes and overcoming crises,” Sheikh Mohammed said in a post on X.

He added that his discussions in Tehran serve as “confirmation of our continued efforts to de-escalate tensions" while opening the door to peaceful solutions,including freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz in accordance with international law.”

A memorandum of understanding reached between the US and Iran in June to end the ‌conflict broke down in ‌part because of differences over the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman where one-fifth of ​the ‌world’s oil ⁠supplies passed ​before ⁠the war began on February 28.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that Iran and Oman had agreed on how to share the waterway and its revenues, but a senior Iranian source later said the two countries were still working on the details of an agreement.

Ghalibaf on Thursday called for national unity in the face of what he described as “all-out economic war,” warning that internal division was “exactly what the enemy wants.”

Ebrahim Azizi, ⁠the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said the sanctions were an “inhumane and hostile act”, ‌which nonetheless had lost their effectiveness. Tehran has lived under various forms of US sanctions ‌since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Hormuz oil flows have fallen to a three-month low, ​with just 5 million barrels per day transiting on Monday, according ‌to the latest ship-tracking data. Before the war, the strait carried roughly 20 million barrels per day of crude oil.

Despite an aerial bombardment earlier in the war that severely diminished Iran’s conventional forces, Tehran ‌has maintained enough missile and drone capability to attack US military bases in neighboring Gulf states and disrupt tanker traffic in the strait.

The International Maritime Organization has reported 70 incidents in the Strait of ⁠Hormuz since February 28 that ⁠have killed 19 seafarers.

An unidentified projectile hit a tanker in the strait on Tuesday, setting off a fire that was later doused, but all crew members were safe and accounted for, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said.

The Strait of Hormuz was open to free navigation before the war, but Iran has since clung to its control of the waterway as leverage and a revenue source, seeking to charge ships a commission, which the US has opposed.