Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said a delegation of the country’s own experts would travel to Doha this week but staunchly denied any sit-down with the US side.
He said: “We have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement … over the coming days, we will not have any negotiation meetings with the US side at any level.”
Iran’s exercise of control over the highly strategic strait has sparked repeated flare-ups, the latest of which came early on Sunday when US Central Command said it had attacked 10 Iranian military targets over “continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping”.
Iran said it retaliated with strikes against US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The blockade remains a key sticking point in the negotiations.
Iran and Oman border the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas pass, and Iran said on Monday they held their first talks since the deal was struck.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said on X: “During a trip to Muscat, the first meeting of the Joint Hormuz Committee was held.”
The strait comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, but under international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls.
Iran warned on Sunday that any attempt by ships to bypass its preferred route through Hormuz would “increase tensions” in the Middle East.
Iran insists ships transiting the strait pass through a corridor near its own shores.
Traffic slowed over the weekend after a vessel was struck while transiting the waterway on Saturday, with 29 commodity vessels crossing on Saturday and 12 transiting on Sunday, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler.
– AFP