Pakistan is making a final push to revive a US-Iran peace deal, with four days left before the 60-day negotiating window agreed to by Washington and Tehran expires.
Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi travelled to Tehran for talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, seeking to revive diplomacy.
A June 17 framework for the talks – described as a memorandum of understanding – gave the two sides 60 days to negotiate a final agreement, with any extension requiring mutual consent.
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said there was still reason for optimism, telling reporters on Tuesday that the US and Iran were “close to some sort of arrangement” over the Strait of Hormuz. “Things are shaping up in favour of peace,” Mr Asif was quoted as saying by Bloomberg, without giving details of any breakthrough.
Qatar also reported progress on the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said negotiations between Oman and Iran over shipping had reached “an advanced stage”.
But Iran's newly appointed Supreme National Security Council secretary, the hardline Mohsen Rezaei, has made it clear that Tehran is not preparing to reopen the waterway without major concessions from Washington.
“Iran’s message is clear: the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the US ends the war and blockade, releases Iran’s frozen assets, and agrees to a region-wide ceasefire, including in Lebanon and Gaza,” he wrote on X. “Until all conditions are met, the strait will remain closed.”
Tehran is linking the reopening of one of the world's most important energy chokepoints to the end of the US blockade, sanctions relief, frozen assets and ceasefires across the region.
Cargo ship attack kills six
That hard line comes as violence threatens the diplomatic track. The US and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels reported separate attacks on shipping, hitting vital maritime routes at opposite ends of the Middle East.
Four crew members and two Yemeni rescuers were killed in an apparent double-tap Houthi attack on a cargo ship in the Bab Al Mandeb strait on Tuesday, the rebels’ first fatal shipping strike since the Iran war began on February 28.
US forces fired two Hellfire missiles at a Panama-flagged vessel in the Gulf of Oman after its crew ignored warnings over Washington’s blockade of Iranian ports, disabling its steering gear, Centcom said.
The attacks have intensified fears that the conflict could disrupt energy supplies further, even as diplomats work to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices have risen for six consecutive days amid growing doubts about a rapid agreement.
US President Donald Trump has meanwhile added his own demands. On Tuesday, he said Iran would need to pay compensation for deaths and damage linked to decades of conflict, including losses involving US forces and conflicts across Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Gaza.
Mr Trump has also insisted that the US controls Hormuz, saying American naval forces have “100 per cent” control of the vital waterway and describing the blockade of Iranian ports as an “infallible” steel wall.
Iran, by contrast, wants the US blockade lifted, sanctions eased, frozen assets released and guarantees against further military action. The two sides therefore remain divided over both the immediate crisis and the architecture of any permanent peace.
'Neither war nor peace'
The UAE is pressing for a broader settlement. Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to President Sheikh Mohamed, warned that the region cannot remain indefinitely in a state of “neither war nor peace”, calling for stability based on international law, sovereignty and clear rules.
Islamabad has until August 16 to turn the latest diplomatic contacts with Washington, Tehran, Muscat and Doha into an agreement.
A deal on Hormuz could help move talks towards a broader US-Iran agreement based on the June terms.
If no agreement is reached by the deadline, disputes over Hormuz, sanctions and regional security will remain unresolved.
That gap was underscored by comments from a senior adviser to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In an interview with US broadcaster PBS, Mohammad Reza Naqdi said Iran could seek to prolong the war until Mr Trump leaves office as part of a strategy to deter future attacks.
“One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost,” Mr Naqdi said.
