Iran said on Monday that it was holding talks with Oman on temporarily reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the critical shipping lane in the Persian Gulf, as mediators rushed to tamp down the prospects of renewed war between the United States and Iran.
Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said at a news conference that there were no direct talks at the moment between Iran and the United States, suggesting that a broader peace deal was not in the offing for now. Instead, he said, the talks with Oman were narrowly focused on negotiating a new route in the strait for ships to traverse.
“The focus of the negotiations with Oman will be on this issue, while the matters relating to Iran and the United States will have to be examined in later stages,” Mr. Baghaei said.
If the talks are successful, however, they could pave the way for the United States and Iran to return to a broader cease-fire, after an earlier deal collapsed in June amid tensions over the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump abruptly canceled a threatened assault on Iran over the weekend, saying there could be progress in reopening the strait, a major waterway for global energy exports blockaded by Iran. He also cited pleas for calm by regional allies like Saudi Arabia.
“The reason they asked is they think there’s a deal on Hormuz,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly pledged that supposed diplomatic breakthroughs with Iran are at hand in recent months, only for them to fall through. Iran has not shifted its position despite repeated American bombardments, leaving Mr. Trump wrestling with how to end the war he began in February alongside Israel.
Qatar, a U.S. ally in the Gulf, is mediating the negotiations on the Strait of Hormuz between Iran, the United States and Oman, three diplomats said on Saturday. The Qatari mediators are coordinating those talks with two other Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to the three diplomats, who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
Iran and Oman have exchanged maps of possible passages for ships as part of the talks, Mr. Baghaei said on Monday. One of the options under consideration was a possible “intermediate route” between the two countries that “safeguards the considerations and interests” of both countries, he added.
Analysts are skeptical that Iran will totally release its grip over the Strait of Hormuz. Before the war, vessels moved freely through the waterway. Since the United States and Israel launched their attack in late February, the Iranian blockade has become a powerful source of leverage for Tehran in its dealings with Washington.
Mr. Baghaei suggested that Iran was unlikely to fully reopen the strait if other sticking points between the Trump administration and the Iranian government remained unresolved, such as a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports.
“So long as all the matters that the United States has violated during this period remain unresolved, naturally no significant change will occur in the situation of the Strait of Hormuz,” he told reporters.
In June, the two countries signed a cease-fire that was supposed to reopen the strait and allow for broader talks to curb Iran’s nuclear program — one of Mr. Trump’s justifications for launching the war. The truce quickly collapsed after Iran fired on commercial ships passing near Oman that Iranian authorities deemed unauthorized.
The deadlock stemmed, in part, from the vague wording that the Trump administration had agreed to in the cease-fire deal. Iran argued that the agreement gave it sweeping authority over the Strait of Hormuz, an interpretation disputed by U.S. officials.
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