QATAR said yesterday that both Washington and Tehran have responded positively to its mediation, a day after its prime minister held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House on a deal to end the war on Iran.
Ibrahim al-Hashmi, head of the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s media department, told a briefing in Doha that mediation is continuing and that mediators are working to end the state of neither war nor peace in the region.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met Trump and, separately, US Vice-President JD Vance in Washington on Monday.
He wrote afterwards that he appreciated ‘positive discussions on reaching an agreement and bringing peace to the region’.
Trump said the two had ‘an excellent conversation’ and spoke of ‘positive momentum’ towards ending the war.
He said US forces remained ready to strike again but added: ‘At this point, however, that seems to be quite unlikely.’
Tehran’s two-day proposal, relayed by Qatar, offers to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping within 48 hours of Washington meeting its conditions, which include lifting the naval blockade of Iranian ports, unfreezing Iranian assets and ending the war on all fronts.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran is awaiting Washington’s reply.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down the prospect of a breakthrough, calling some of Iran’s demands ‘outrageous and ridiculous’.
Araghchi said yesterday that Trump ‘should have realised much earlier that he has failed to achieve any of his objectives in the war against Iran, and will never achieve them’.
He called reports of a planned meeting between Vance and Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei ‘entirely baseless’.
Rezaei wrote on Monday that the war on Iran ‘has already wrecked the US government’ and told Washington: ‘Time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out.’
The Strait remains closed under Iranian control. The Revolutionary Guards navy said yesterday that two oil tankers attempting an unauthorised route through it had caught fire, one of them a supertanker that struck a naval mine.