The focus of contacts between the US and Iran has widened to include the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea, a Pakistani source privy to the negotiations told The National.
“There’s another round of message exchanges taking place behind the scenes, focused exclusively on the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea,” the source said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday said Iran was receiving messages from the US while insisting no direct or indirect talks were taking place. US President Donald Trump said the two countries were talking “right now”.
“The US side wants to find a way whereby Hormuz and the Red Sea are no longer subject to attacks and where attacks on shipping are stopped,” the source added. They said Iran, in return, was seeking the concessions promised in June's interim peace deal, such as oil sales and the gradual easing of sanctions.
With renewed Houthi attacks on the Red Sea after the rebels declared a blockade, Pakistan has become more than a mediator between the US and Iran, chiefly because Pakistan signed a mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia last September. The kingdom is now at risk of Houthi attacks after the announcement of the blockade.
A peace process in Yemen has been frozen since 2023 and all but collapsed with recent escalations between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthis.
Recently, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued a stark warning to the Houthis against any attacks on Pakistan-linked vessels. This followed a conversation between the Saudi and Pakistani foreign ministers.
“Pakistan cannot not get involved if the Saudis ask it to,” even if that means Pakistani boats heading to the Red Sea to defend Saudi interests, the source said.
Long process ahead
The renewed exchange of messages does not mean a permanent end is in sight for the US-Iran war. But the fact that diplomacy remains alive is a ray of hope, the source said. They believe each side will want an agreement, allowing them to frame themselves as the winner.
But to reach that point will involve a “long and painstaking process”, the source said.
“Messages are passed to the Iranian government then taken to supreme leader. Then they come back and are sent to the Americans, and the Americans come back and say what is and isn't acceptable to them.”
“The positive side is that the process still exists. The negative is that the process isn’t delivering quickly enough to bring the crisis to an end.”
Questions surrounding Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei's well-being are also mounting, as he remains absent from public view. He was appointed following his father's death on February 28 in a US-Israeli strike.
The source believes that if the Americans were certain he has died, they would not have entertained Iranian claims that they are passing US messages to his team.
No guarantees
Pakistan has also refused to be a guarantor to whatever agreement is ultimately reached because “there's no way to do that”, the source said.
Additionally, the question of Israel's intentions remains a threat to any prospects for peace. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington this week, just as the US said it was giving diplomacy “some space” and halting strikes on Iran after nearly two weeks of nightly attacks.
Israel is still attacking Lebanon despite the initial US-Iran deal stipulating that war should end on all fronts.
“Israel is the least-controllable factor operating outside the US-Iran framework and [could] blow it up at any moment,” Middle East analyst and consultant Francesco Schiavi told The National.
Despite the push for military action by Israel, it has become clear it will take more than four months of intermittent bombardment to topple Iran's regime, as was once expected.
Still, the “devil is in the details” and the wording of the memorandum of understanding signed in June is the very reason behind its collapse, Mr Schiavi added.
“The MoU fell apart over the core issue on who controls Hormuz because the text allowed two opposite readings: Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and US insistence on freedom of navigation”.
“Ambiguity didn't survive contact with reality,” he told The National.
