doha
\nThe United States and Iran are committed to mediation efforts and are reviewing proposals aimed at bridging their differences, Qatar said on Tuesday.
\n\u201cBoth parties remain committed to the negotiation process; as we mentioned, we are facilitating the real-time exchange of proposals between them,\u201d foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told reporters, according to Reuters and Al-Arabiya.
\n\u201cWe remain hopeful that there is still a chance for a deal to set the environment for future negotiations\u201d, he said.
\nQatar said that both the United States and Iran remained committed to mediation efforts and were reviewing proposals put forward by mediators. While the Qatari team that travelled to Tehran had since returned to Doha, talks were continuing, Qatar\u2019s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said.
\n\u201cThere are intensive joint regional efforts underway to avoid escalation,\u201d he told a news briefing, adding that the \u201cbridging\u201d of gaps \u201cis ongoing\u201d
\nThree tankers hit mines in Strait of Hormuz, Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Navy quoted as saying
\nThree oil tankers struck mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday after entering unauthorised shipping lanes with their navigation and identification systems switched off, the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Navy as saying.
\nThe vessels were left burning off the southern coast of the strait, the IRGC Navy said, warning ships against ignoring Iranian regulations and cooperating with the US military to transit unauthorised routes.
\nIran-US deal still out of reach despite diplomatic push, Iranian official says
\nIran and the United States remain far from a deal to end the war, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday, despite intensified diplomatic efforts to avert a return to major conflict after the US midterm elections.
\nOvernight, the US carried out \u201cdefensive\u201d strikes on Iran\u2019s Qeshm island, with a US official saying the strikes targeted surface-to-air missiles used against US assets. Another official said the strikes appeared to be limited and did not signal a resumption of major combat operations.
\n\u201cMediators are working hard to narrow gaps between Tehran and Washington,\u201d the senior Iranian official said, after Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Monday night for talks on a version of a draft US-Iran deal that has been under negotiation for the past eight days.
\n\u201cTehran\u2019s conditions must be met if the US wants Hormuz reopened,\u201d the Iranian official cautioned, referring to the waterway critical for global energy supplies.
\nThe Iranian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said nuclear talks could only start after Iran\u2019s conditions were fulfilled and that Tehran would not accept Washington\u2019s \u201cexcessive demands\u201d.
\nTehran would respond forcefully, in the region and beyond, to US strikes, the official added.
\nOil prices rose by about $1 on Tuesday, having dropped more than 7% the previous day on hopes diplomacy was progressing.
\nAdditionally, Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards said they downed a US MQ-9 drone and two Lucas drones in the skies near the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
doha The United States and Iran are committed to mediation efforts and are reviewing proposals aimed at bridging their differences, Qatar said on Tuesday. \u201cBoth parties remain committed to the negotiation process; as we mentioned, we are facilitating the real-time exchange of proposals between them,\u201d foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told reporters, according to Reuters …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105353","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\/105353","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=105353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105364,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105353\/revisions\/105364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}