Qatari negotiators spend 12 hours in Tehran trying to unlock a US-Iran deal, Axios reports

Iran is weighing a Qatari draft and is due to reply by the end of the week, an official briefed on the talks says. It has already rejected Washington's seven-day Hormuz plan.

Qatari negotiators spent 12 hours in Tehran on a US-Iran deal, Axios reports, the longest single mediation session of this round. That length points to real bargaining rather than a courtesy call, but a long meeting is not an agreement, and the next few days will show whether it produced one.

An official briefed on the talks says Tehran is weighing the Qatari draft and will reply by the end of the week. The last reply was a refusal: on October 28 Iran rejected Washington's seven-day Hormuz plan, calling its terms "unacceptable demands". Tehran also says the US blockade must be lifted before talks on reopening the strait can move. Against that, the US envoy Tom Barrack has said a deal is "very close", the first upbeat word from an American official.

Mediators have been here before. On September 29 Qatari intermediaries floated a deal linking Iran's blockade demand to US nuclear concessions, and optimism unravelled when Trump denied offering Tehran anything. On October 7 Trump said he did not want to pursue a deal. Barrack's confidence is therefore worth less than a written Iranian acceptance.

The alternative is staged. Axios, citing US and Israeli officials, reports that they expect a week of bombing if there is no deal. Trump says no strike will come before the November 3 election, though the Pentagon holds a strike directive with no date. Maariv says Israel sees signs of US preparations, with two US carriers and 12 destroyers and warships in the Arabian Sea. Whether the Qatari draft becomes an accepted framework, rather than another text Tehran calls unacceptable, decides which track, negotiation or military planning, takes over.

Oil's physical signals are mixed. Saudi October export flows nearly matched September, and the Gulf crude premium has collapsed from $34 to about $6 a barrel, which says supply is getting through. That is a modest shift for a week with this much diplomacy in it, and it suggests traders are waiting for Iran's answer rather than betting on either outcome.