Pakistan's defense minister said the US and Iran are "close to some sort of arrangement" over the Strait of Hormuz, even after both sides appeared to toughen their positions in the long-deadlocked negotiations.
"Things are shaping up in favor of peace," Khawaja Asif told reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday, without giving details of any breakthrough. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi arrived in Tehran to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, the Islamic Republic's semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported.
| Talks between Iran and Oman about reopening Hormuz to some maritime shipping have reached an advanced stage, Al Jazeera reported earlier, citing a Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Pakistan has been mediating the conflict alongside Qatar. The upbeat assessments, however, came after US President Donald Trump toughened his stance on Monday, saying Tehran should pay reparations for those killed in attacks linked to the Islamic Republic as well as in domestic protests. His comments came in response to a series of demands laid out by Iran over the weekend, including compensation for US violations of a now-lapsed interim peace deal agreed by the sides in June. A White House official said Trump believes he's in a strong negotiating position and is in no rush to secure a deal, but declined to characterize the talks. The US sees Iran's demands as constantly shifting and believes Tehran faces mounting economic pressure and factional infighting, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration's thinking. ALSO READ: US Expects Strait Of Hormuz Deal Soon As Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan Sign Defence Pact Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews late Tuesday that Iran was going "fine" and that the US has "total control" of the Strait of Hormuz. "Right now, we're in a very good position," he said. Crude oil climbed as traders remained wary about the prospects for a Middle East deal. Global benchmark Brent rose 0.6% to $89.50 a barrel, extending its rally to a sixth day. While Iranian officials have signaled that Tehran and Oman may be nearing an agreement, it remains unclear whether such a deal would lead to an immediate and full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, or what conditions Iran may seek to impose on traffic through the waterway. Mohsen Rezaee, the newly appointed secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, appeared to underscore that distinction, saying any agreement with Oman on control over the waterway would remain separate from the closure of the strait, according to a report by state-run IRIB. Iran conveyed additional conditions to Washington through intermediaries, including demands that the US end the war and unfreeze blocked Iranian assets, IRIB cited Rezaee as saying. The comments followed a meeting with China's ambassador to Iran, Cong Peiwu, in Tehran. "The danger is that Washington may see Iranian compliance as the prerequisite for implementing the MoU, while Tehran sees American implementation as the prerequisite for resuming negotiations - recreating precisely the sequencing trap that helped unravel the agreement in the first place," said Ali Vaez, a deputy program director at the International Crisis Group. Iran will almost certainly reject Trump's latest demands, which the US leader said will be included "firmly into any, and all, future negotiations." The back-and-forth appeared to reduce the chance that the warring parties will be able to agree to any immediate pact on the waterway, where around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the conflict began on Feb. 28. ALSO READ: Internet Mocks Pakistan's New Promotional Song For Saudi-Turkey Military Pact Tensions also remained elevated elsewhere in the region. The UK navy reported incidents involving military forces and commercial vessels in the Gulf of Oman and off Yemen, where a cargo ship reported casualties after being hit by an unknown projectile. Saudi Arabia also extinguished a fire at its Jazan refinery on Sunday, with Yemen's Houthi militants claiming an attack on the facility. |
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