DUBAI
\nThe event would be the first attended by Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian since Trump launched \u201cOperation Epic Fury\u201d against \u200cIran in February, alongside Israel. Trump had said on Sunday he would be open to a meeting with the Iranian president.
\nA senior Iranian official said there were no plans for the two leaders to meet directly, but that Iran\u2019s delegation had full authority to revive talks.
\nIran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz to Gulf shipping within seven days if the US fulfilled Tehran\u2019s demands to ease military pressure and lift an American blockade on Iranian ports, the Iranian official said, adding that Iran had conveyed its latest proposal to Washington via \u200bmediators last week.
\n\u201cThe US needs to announce that it wants to resolve the issue diplomatically, make that official, and then agree on a timeline for how the process will move forward,\u201d the official said. \u201cThe UN General \u200bAssembly is a golden opportunity for the US to return to diplomacy.\u201d
\nSecretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show the US was open to speaking with the Iranians, \u201cespecially if it has the prospects of leading to something positive and ultimately achieving the goal of what this is all about\u201d.
\nNo face-to-face meetings between Iran and the United States are known to have taken place since July, when an \u200bagreement on an interim deal to end the war collapsed just weeks after it was signed by Trump and Pezeshkian.
\nAsked by Fox and Friends about the prospect of a meeting between the presidents, Rubio said of Trump: \u201cHe\u2019s a businessman \u200bwho comes from the world of practicality and common sense. And common sense tells you there\u2019s no harm in engaging and talking to someone.\u201d
\nREMINDERS OF HARDLINE POSITIONS
\nBut Rubio also noted that Pezeshkian is subordinate under Iran\u2019s ruling system to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, \u201cand the supreme leader is a radical Shia cleric and we need to remember that when we talk\u201d.
\n\u201cThe central issue here is Iran is run by lunatic clerics,\u201d Rubio told Fox. \u201cThese people can never have nuclear weapons.\u201d
\nIn a reminder of Iran\u2019s firm position so far, \u200bParliament Speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, who headed Iran\u2019s negotiating team at previous talks, said on Tuesday that Iran would never surrender: \u201cTrump must understand that he cannot impose his power on the Iranian people and its armed forces.\u201d
\nTrump is due \u200bto meet on Tuesday with leaders of the six Gulf Arab states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
\nAll are keen to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz but wary of giving their longstanding rival Iran too much \u200cpower. All apart from Oman also host huge US military bases that have come under repeated Iranian attack throughout the war.
\nSAUDIS SEEK US SUPPORT AGAINST HOUTHIS
\nThe biggest of them, Saudi Arabia, has been drawn deeper into the war this month, with Houthi fighters aligned to Iran advancing in Yemen, routing forces of a Saudi-backed government there and threatening Saudi oil exports through the Red Sea.
\nThere was some relief on oil markets on Tuesday, after sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had restarted operations at its East-West Pipeline and could resume exports within hours, albeit at reduced volume, from the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
\nThe pipeline, Saudi Arabia\u2019s main alternative route for exports to bypass wartime disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, was shut down \u200bafter attacks this month that Riyadh blamed on Iranian allies \u200bin Iraq.
\nThe Houthis have routed Saudi-supported government forces \u2060along the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at its mouth, and have attacked Saudi Arabia directly with missiles and drones. The fighters are now pushing to seize the strategic heights of the Kahboub Mountains that overlook the Red Sea coast.
\nThe US, which bombed the Houthis for two months last year, has so far rebuffed repeated pleas from Saudi Arabia\u2019s \u200bCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to rejoin the fight. The New York Times reported that Trump called off US strikes against the Houthis on Sunday at the \u200blast minute, after troops had already \u2060begun loading bombs onto planes.
\nAsked why Washington had so far held back from striking the Houthis, Rubio said: \u201cUltimately, if it comes down to it, the United States will always stand with Saudi Arabia and support them because we have an agreement with them to do so.
\n\u201cThat said, that is a very dangerous and complex conflict that pre-exists\u2026 We have a history with the Houthis as well, and that\u2019s something we don\u2019t want to see impacted either.\u201d
\nQATARI PROPOSAL ON THE TABLE
\nOn the table at \u2060the Gulf states\u2019 meeting \u200bwith Trump is a Qatari proposal for a framework to bring Iran and the Arab Gulf states into a common security architecture, regional \u200bsources said. One source said Iran was reviewing the proposal.
\nSpeaking at a Qatar Economic Forum in New York on Sunday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said any such arrangement would need to provide security guarantees for the Gulf states and expand economic interdependence with Iran.
\n\u201cLasting \u200bsecurity cannot be built through repeated cycles of escalations and retaliation, or arrangements that leave any state permanently exposed to insecurity,\u201d Sheikh Mohammed said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DUBAI The event would be the first attended by Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian since Trump launched \u201cOperation Epic Fury\u201d against \u200cIran in February, alongside Israel. Trump had said on Sunday he would be open to a meeting with the Iranian president. A senior Iranian official said there were no plans for the two leaders …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103372,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103361\/revisions\/103372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}