Iranian officials in Qatar for talks on Hormuz as Tehran, US downplay chance of deal |
Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister were in Doha on Monday for talks with Qatar’s prime minister on a potential deal with the US to end the three-month-old war, an official briefed on the visit said, after Washington and Tehran played down hopes for an imminent breakthrough.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in New Delhi earlier in the day that the US would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before considering whether to deal with Iran in “another way.”
There was a “pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the strait, get the strait (of Hormuz) open, enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter, and hopefully we can pull it off,” Rubio said.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said in a post on Truth Social that the deal with Iran “will either be a great and meaningful one, or there will be no deal.”
He reiterated his claim that the deal would be “the exact opposite” of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated under former US president Barack Obama, calling it a “direct and open path to a Nuclear Weapon for Iran.”
“I don’t do deals like that!” he added.
Strait of Hormuz central to current negotiations
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a weekly briefing on Monday that a conclusion had been reached on many topics, but that did not mean that “we’re close to signing an agreement.”
The official briefed on the talks in Doha told Reuters the discussions with Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were focused primarily on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, while the country’s central bank governor is also part of the delegation to discuss the potential release of frozen Iranian funds as part of a final deal.
Baghaei said the potential memorandum of understanding contains 14 points and is focused on ending the war and the US naval........