US and Iranian delegations have held one round of direct talks in Switzerland since the signature of their memorandum of understanding, as well as indirect negotiations in Qatar, but there has been no sign of diplomatic progress since.
Iran defiant
Doha in a call with Cairo on Friday backed continued diplomacy, despite Iran saying it had launched attacks on US assets in Qatar, and the Gulf state accusing Tehran of attacking one of its tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Tasnim agency said the Qatari delegation was in Tehran to “try to reinforce Qatar’s role as a mediator following events on Tuesday”, when Doha condemned Tehran for what it called an “unacceptable assault” on one of its LNG tankers. Iran denied the accusation.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has also been mediating the conflict, held a call with Qatar’s emir on Friday to discuss the recent escalation, Sharif’s office said in a statement.
Sharif also spoke with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, urging him to safeguard the “hard-earned peace”, the premier said on X.
However, Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with Washington, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, struck a defiant tone.
“Ending the war is a priority for the countries of the world, but everyone must know that this confrontation will never end with Iran’s surrender,” the ISNA news agency reported him saying.
Iranians, he said, were “fully prepared to defend ourselves”.
Hormuz flashpoint
The war began on February 28 when the United States and Israel launched a massive wave of surprise attacks on Iran that killed much of Tehran’s senior leadership, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran retaliated by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz and launching strikes on Israel and US interests across the Gulf.
The war also spilled over into Lebanon after Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel, prompting it to invade. Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike in the south killed a young man on Friday.
The wider war was largely halted by a ceasefire agreement on April 8, but there have been sporadic outbursts of violence ever since.
Most have been sparked by disagreements over the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran insists it must control, and has expressed a desire to charge fees for ships that transit it.
It did not have such powers before the war, and while the strait — a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas — comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, under international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will travel to Oman on Saturday for talks on the Strait of Hormuz, the official IRNA news agency said.
On Tuesday, the US and Qatar accused Iran of targeting tankers in the strait, with Washington launching strikes against dozens of targets over two days at midweek.
Iran then said it had retaliated with attacks on US bases across the Gulf, while Jordan said it shot down missiles in its airspace.
While there was no repeat of the previous day’s strikes by Friday evening in the Gulf, Iran reiterated its determination to hit back if attacked.
“Any attack on infrastructure will be retaliated against, and the criminal Zionist regime responsible for these atrocities will not be safe from the response of our fighters,” Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the head of Iran’s top security body, said in a statement carried by state TV.
– AFP
