Shuttle diplomacy is less glamorous when the destination is the same hotel district. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, met Qatari mediators in New York on Monday to discuss a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway whose closure has become the sharpest edge of the war between Iran, America and Israel. The Qataris will now carry the ideas discussed across town to the Americans.
Mr Araghchi told Iranian state media he hoped to receive Washington’s final response by Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera. An official briefed on the negotiations had earlier told Reuters that Qatari mediators were expected to hold separate talks with the Iranian foreign minister and with the American side on Monday or Tuesday, in a fresh effort to advance a deal, TBS News reported.
The sticking-point is sequencing. Tehran wants the strait — and America’s blockade of its ports — dealt with first; an earlier Iranian offer to reopen the waterway within seven days foundered on just this point, as a previous rews story recounted. Washington’s price is the nuclear programme. An American official said there would be no agreement to end the war unless it is addressed. President Donald Trump has rejected Tehran’s previous roadmap once already, a refusal that was followed by explosions in the strait itself, rews reported this week.
Neither side shows much sign of bending, yet both keep sending for the Qataris. That is the tell. Iran’s economy cannot live indefinitely with a closed strait; America’s president, whatever his appetite for brinkmanship, faces his own reckoning over a war whose costs mount by the month. Mediation of this sort thrives not on goodwill but on mutual exhaustion.
By Tuesday, if Mr Araghchi’s timetable holds, Tehran will know whether the Americans buy the amended plan. If they do not, the strait stays shut, the shuttling resumes — and the Qataris will need to keep their suites in Manhattan a little longer.