Qatar says US wants deal with Iran amid effort to resume talks

Doha: Qatar is working with the United States and Iran to resume talks, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said, noting that US officials have indicated that Washington wants a deal.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Qatar Economic Forum in New York, Al Ansari said Qatar had been exchanging ideas with Washington and Tehran over the past few weeks in an effort to restart negotiations.

“We have been working together through our mediator team with both Tehran and the United States to see if we can get it restarted again. A lot of ideas have been thrown back and forth,” Al Ansari said, adding that Qatar was trying to “bridge the gap and find the right moment to move forward.”

“We have heard statements on the record from various administration officials who have confirmed that the United States wants a deal, and the United States wants a solution to this war,” he said.

Al Ansari said any settlement should provide regional stability while establishing an international understanding to protect strategic waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Open the strait, stop the war. These are the two main objectives of everything that we’re doing right now,” he added.

Meanwhile, Iran’s main military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, on Sunday warned that if the United States and certain countries in the Middle East make any mistake, they will be targeted by “painful” strikes.

The headquarters said in a statement carried by Iranian media that it has intelligence indicating that Washington decided at a recent meeting in Europe to resume actions against Tehran with the backing of certain regional countries.

It warned that if the United States makes any mistake against Iran, all its bases and interests in the region would be targeted by “continuous, effective and painful strikes without any limitation or reservation.”

The headquarters also warned that if regional states continue what it called their double-standard policy toward Iran and align themselves with the US “aggression,” they could “no longer expect restraint or forbearance from Iran’s powerful armed forces.”

IANS