Newsletters
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday that Qatar was preparing to take new ideas to Washington after talks with Tehran focused on the conditions Iran has set for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
"They had ideas, and we discussed how a way could be found to meet Iran’s conditions and how those conditions could be fulfilled," Araghchi said over recent talks with a Qatari delegation in New York.
Araghchi added that he was due to return to Tehran within hours of speaking to reporters, while the mediators were expected to relay the U.S. position once they received it.
Any response from Washington would then be passed back to Tehran, with Araghchi expressing hope that the exchange would be completed by Tuesday. He also noted that contacts through Qatar and Pakistan had remained open but had become more serious after Iran submitted its latest proposal.
Tehran had also used meetings in New York to outline to Washington and the wider international community what it considers necessary for the strategic waterway to reopen, according to Araghchi.
The diplomatic activity came alongside reports of possible U.S. concessions in a separate dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. A U.S. official told Axios and CNN Monday that President Donald Trump was prepared to offer sanctions relief and release frozen Iranian funds in exchange for concrete progress on nuclear issues.
CNN described the talks, citing the official, as "positive and constructive," but reported that Washington would not finalize an agreement until its nuclear-related concerns were fully resolved. Trump later said the U.S. would win the Iran war "one way or the other" and predicted that it would happen "pretty quickly."
The latest diplomatic exchanges followed Trump's rejection Saturday of an Iranian proposal aimed at easing tensions and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, describing Tehran's conditions as "unacceptable."
On Sunday, Trump said he expected further negotiations with Tehran during the week and accused Iranian officials of having "overplayed" their hand in earlier talks. He then pushed back against the reported U.S. offer, denying that he had put sanctions relief or frozen Iranian funds on the table.
"This is untrue. I offered them nothing!" Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. Trump also called on Axios to withdraw the story, branding it "fake" and describing it as a "hoax" aimed at satisfying what he called "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
