Qatar says contacts ongoing to revive US-Iran talks

Doha: Qatar said Tuesday that contacts with the United States and Iran are continuing in an effort to bring the two sides back to negotiations.

“Our officials are on the phone on a daily basis trying to workshop ideas, workshop ways of getting back to the negotiations,” Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said at a weekly media briefing.

On the Strait of Hormuz, Al Ansari urged dialogue and diplomacy, saying the priority is “to go back to the freedom of navigation and to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz the way it was before the war.”

Regarding the latest US economic sanctions against Iran, Al Ansari called them unilateral and reiterated that Qatar prioritises a diplomatic settlement, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Iran will not let the war end based on conditions set by the “aggressive” parties.

“We have definitely not been the party to start the war, but we will not let the war’s end be based on the aggressive parties’ conditions,” Baghaei told a weekly press conference in Tehran.

He said that Iran remained determined to defend its territory and would not “compromise with the aggressive parties” or surrender to their “excessive demands.”

Baghaei dismissed US claims that the Strait of Hormuz was open and that millions of barrels of oil were passing through it each day, describing them as part of “psychological and media warfare”.

He also slammed Washington’s newly announced anti-Iran economic operation, saying Tehran would use all its “multilateral capacities” to counter US sanctions, which he described as a blow to free trade and national sovereignty.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced a new wave of sanctions to further isolate Iran, warning of what he called “an economic D-Day.”

IANS