In Tehran, the diplomatic push is already exposing divisions over what comes next.<\/p>\n
Pragmatists see the visits as a possible route back to the Islamabad memorandum and negotiations with Washington, while hardliners portray them as an American attempt to escape the pressure Iran has created around Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Farda News, a website close to Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, said visits by Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi and Pakistan\u2019s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir shared the objective of finding a political solution to the confrontation.<\/p>\n
But it stressed that an agreement with Oman would not itself mean reopening Hormuz.<\/p>\n
\u201cTehran insists that a technical agreement with Oman does not mean returning the strait to its pre-war conditions, and that remains tied to the implementation of US commitments under the Islamabad memorandum,\u201d it wrote.<\/p>\n
\u2018American pawn\u2019<\/p>\n
Economic daily Donya-ye Eqtesad similarly said the phased agreement could provide a route toward reviving the Islamabad memorandum, easing pressure around the strait and eventually returning Iran and the United States to negotiations.<\/p>\n
But hardline Kayhan called the visits a \u201cnew phase of the White House deception operation,\u201d arguing that Washington needed Iran back at the negotiating table to escape the energy crisis and deadlock over Hormuz.<\/p>\n
It described Munir as an \u201cAmerican pawn\u201d being used to help Washington escape what it called the quagmire of the war and declared the Islamabad memorandum dead.<\/p>\n
The competing interpretations follow an unusually concentrated burst of regional diplomacy. Al-Busaidi visited Tehran on Tuesday, a day after Munir, while Qatar\u2019s prime minister is expected in the Iranian capital on Thursday, according to Iranian media.<\/p>\n
Diplomatic push<\/p>\n
Tehran and Muscat announced after al-Busaidi\u2019s visit that they were working on a phased framework including a temporary maritime corridor through Hormuz and a joint mine-clearance project.<\/p>\n
Technical negotiations are continuing over a permanent corridor and the future management of the strait, with the two sides stressing the importance of discussions involving other Persian Gulf states.<\/p>\n
After leaving Tehran, al-Busaidi discussed the proposed Hormuz framework with Qatar\u2019s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.<\/p>\n
Qatar, another mediator between Tehran and Washington, said Tuesday that it continued to support efforts to resolve the crisis.<\/p>\n
Former diplomat Jalal Sadatian told Fararu that Oman\u2019s renewed activity should be understood in light of its established mediation role. He said Munir also appeared to have carried a message from Washington aimed at reducing tensions and reopening a channel for talks.<\/p>\n
International affairs analyst Jafar Ghanadbashi went further, writing in Arman Melli that the Pakistani and Omani visits were \u201ca very clear sign of America\u2019s view of the current situation and its need for negotiations at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018No rush for talks\u2019<\/p>\n
But Iranian officials have made clear that progress with Oman does not mean Tehran is ready to reopen the strait.<\/p>\n
Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Tuesday that Iran still considered itself to be at war and that the agreement with Oman did not amount to an immediate reopening of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
He said reopening depended on an end to the war on all fronts, the lifting of the blockade against Iran and a resolution of the situation in Yemen.<\/p>\n
Gharibabadi also challenged US claims about mine clearance in the strait, asking why vessels had not resumed passage if the mines had been removed. He warned that US mine-clearance vessels entering the area would be targeted.<\/p>\n
Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday that negotiations with Oman over the past month had produced mutually acceptable results concerning the two countries\u2019 respective waters and revenues from the strait.<\/p>\n
But he accused Washington of obstructing a final agreement and reiterated that reopening Hormuz depended on the United States returning to the Islamabad memorandum.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the United States does not accept our conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not open under any circumstances,\u201d Mohebi said.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was \u201cnot in a hurry\u201d to resume negotiations with Iran and had \u201cno time schedule\u201d for ending the war. He said both economic warfare and military strikes against Iran were effective.<\/p>\n
The competing signals leave regional mediators with a difficult sequencing problem: whether an agreement over Hormuz can create enough room to restart diplomacy before either Tehran or Washington decides it has more to gain by waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Tehran, the diplomatic push is already exposing divisions over what comes next. Pragmatists see the visits as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,67,63,60,61,64,58,62,59,65,49,69,66],"class_list":["post-267680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tehran","tag-iran","tag-iran-and-china","tag-iran-covid","tag-iran-economy","tag-iran-government","tag-iran-media-iran-and-the-united-states","tag-iran-news","tag-iran-nuclear","tag-iran-politics","tag-iran-us","tag-middle-east","tag-tehran","tag-us-sanctions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117170783019705725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}