Secretary of State Marco Rubio says a peace deal with Iran is extremely difficult. Tehran keeps Hormuz closed.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said reaching a peace deal with Iran is extremely difficult and that economic pressure will continue until Tehran stops targeting commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Al Jazeera reported. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that the strait will remain closed until Washington accepts Tehran’s conditions. He said indirect talks with the United States are continuing through Pakistan and Qatar.
Araghchi said the negotiating table is still there. He said that if the United States meets Iran’s conditions, the strait will be fully reopened and further rounds of talks will follow until a final agreement is reached. He did not detail the conditions in the reports reviewed.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday that its naval mines set two oil tankers ablaze and halted them as they tried to cross the strait by a route Tehran considers illegal. The Guard said the incident happened at a crossing point in the southern part of the waterway. Reports differed on whether two or three tankers were affected, and the claim has not been independently verified.
The war began in late February, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran while Washington and Tehran were negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program. The two sides agreed in June to a memorandum of understanding meant to provide a framework for a permanent settlement, but an interim truce broke down on July 8 after Iran struck commercial ships in the strait. Negotiations have since stalled, and recent indirect talks on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly produced no breakthrough, according to Al Jazeera. Iran closed the strait to foreign shipping early in the war, disrupting a route that carries a large share of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.
Aurax News compiled this report from information provided by Al Jazeera, Gulf News and Euronews.