Mediators are working with Iran and the United States to try to broker an agreement that would end the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, three regional officials and two American officials told the Associated Press, but major obstacles still separate the two sides.
Indirect talks are taking place as the conflict, now in its eighth month, has caused global economic damage and has hit Iran hard. Several attempts to allow safe navigation in one of the world’s most important sea routes have failed.
Officials revealed that behind-the-scenes efforts continued even after U.S. President Donald Trump initially said he rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the strait within a week if the United States would agree to suspend the blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets, and exempt Iranian oil sales from sanctions, among other conditions.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who remained in New York after last week’s world leaders’ meeting at the United Nations General Assembly, is meeting with Qatari mediators today to discuss the latest discussions.
Despite Trump’s frequently bellicose rhetoric, he is open to pursuing a non-military solution to the conflict if it can be achieved, said a senior US official.
But the Trump administration will not seal an agreement with Tehran until nuclear issues are addressed, said another American official. According to this source, Trump is willing to grant sanctions relief to Iran, in addition to releasing some of the frozen assets, in exchange for concrete progress on nuclear issues; and while Iran has indicated it is flexible on nuclear questions, the two sides are far apart on the timeline and on which side would take the first steps.
Two of the regional officials interviewed by the AP confirmed that mediators are working with both sides on a proposal that would include reopening the strait and suspending the U.S. blockade, with sanctions to be lifted later.
According to the draft text under discussion, the strait would be reopened under a separate agreement that Iran has been negotiating with Oman, on the other side of the strait, and would include the absence of tolls, something Tehran has sought. This agreement seeks to temporarily manage maritime traffic along a route that, before the war, was seen as an international waterway.
*Content translated with the aid of Artificial Intelligence, reviewed and edited by the Broadcast Editorial Desk (the Estado Group’s real-time news system).
