Qatar floats new proposal to break US-Iran deadlock
The plan seeks concessions from both Washington and Tehran after Iran's own deadline for a US reply passed unanswered.
Published
Qatari mediators have put forward a new proposal aimed at ending the standoff between the United States and Iran, asking each side for concessions the other has so far resisted.
The terms echo an earlier swap floated by mediators: free passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the United States easing its blockade of Iranian ports. That version stalled. The Financial Times reported that Iran's own deadline for a US reply on reopening the strait passed without an answer.
The diplomacy has moved in fits and starts. Iran's foreign minister, Araghchi, briefed the Iranian president on a US proposal, according to Iran's state news agency IRNA, and separately told the cabinet that Washington had sent terms, according to a government spokesperson. On Tuesday, US officials described the talks as positive, only for President Trump to say hours later that he had offered Iran nothing, unravelling the day's optimism.
That pattern, Doha proposing terms, one side signalling openness, then a retraction within hours, has repeated for weeks. The new proposal's structure mirrors the strait-for-blockade swap that already stalled, so it reads as another mediation attempt rather than a structural break. Until a signed agreement changes shipping or blockade conditions on the ground, the Hormuz-linked risk premium built into crude prices is likely to stay in place.