Qatar announced on Tuesday that it has observed “progress” in the US-Iran talks. Doha, as the main mediator, is working tirelessly to end the uncertainty surrounding the crisis between Washington and Tehran. The assessment came a day after Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met US President Donald Trump at the White House.
“This meeting at the White House took place in a positive atmosphere and focused on achieving progress in the talks,” said Ibrahim bin Sultan Al Hashmi, director of the Media and Communications Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He spoke at a weekly press conference in Doha.
“We cannot say how close or how far an agreement is,” Al Hashmi said. He added that mediation efforts are continuing and that both sides are making positive statements about a diplomatic solution. According to him, Qatari officials held talks in Tehran and consulted with other regional governments before Sheikh Mohammed departed for Washington.
Trump said that Gulf states, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, had asked him to postpone new strikes. He said he would wait for now, but would keep the US naval blockade in place. Tehran has proposed resuming talks within two days, on condition that Washington stop the strikes, lift the blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz and waive some sanctions.
Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program would come afterward. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei defended the proposal on Monday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called some of Tehran’s conditions “outrageous and ridiculous” a day earlier.
Al Hashmi said that continued closure of Hormuz would hit the most vulnerable the hardest. He called for the strait, a key route for oil and liquefied natural gas exports from the Gulf, to be reopened for navigation as soon as possible. Sheikh Mohammed joined the ministers of Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, Germany and Italy in Paris on Tuesday to discuss the war on the sidelines of a G7 meeting.