ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Qatar are exchanging messages between Iran and the United States, but the contacts do not amount to negotiations and Tehran has yet to decide whether to resume talks with Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview widely reported on Saturday.
Pakistan led a months-long diplomatic push to end the US-Iran conflict that produced an interim peace agreement in June, with Qatar joining the mediation effort more directly as the negotiations progressed. The deal was intended to end hostilities and provide a 60-day window for negotiations on a permanent settlement, but later unraveled amid renewed US strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks on US interests in the region.
“Qatar and Pakistan exchange messages between the parties and are in contact with us, but this does not mean negotiations,” Araghchi told Iranian outlet Shahrara News.
The remarks provide fresh confirmation that backchannel contacts involving Pakistan and Qatar remain active despite the breakdown of the June agreement and renewed US-Iran hostilities. Earlier in the conflict, Islamabad publicly acknowledged relaying proposals between Washington and Tehran as part of indirect talks.
Pakistan has repeatedly called for diplomacy to resolve the conflict and this week said it was making “all-out efforts” to bring the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table through direct and indirect channels.
Araghchi separately discussed Iran’s talks with Oman during the interview, which he said were strictly technical and focused on establishing new shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz. He drew a distinction between those discussions and the conditions for reopening the strategic waterway.
He said the previous shipping routes were no longer suitable and Iran and Oman were working on a temporary route that could eventually become permanent.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes, has been at the center of the dispute between Tehran and Washington. Iran has restricted traffic through the waterway during the conflict, while the United States has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports.
Tehran has demanded steps including sanctions relief, the release of frozen Iranian assets and an end to military attacks before normal shipping can resume, while Washington has accused Iran of failing to honor commitments under the June agreement to reopen the strait.
