Middle East war: Iran sends team to Qatar for peace deal

By Nkiruka Nnorom, with agency reports

Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Central Bank Governor, Abdolnaser Hemmati, have arrived in Qatar for talks with Qatari Prime Minister on a potential deal with the U.S to end the three-month war and release of its frozen assets.

This marked the first senior Iranian visit to the region since the start of the Middle East war, which saw Tehran launched thousands of drones and missiles across the Gulf, including Qatar.

It also signalled Qatar’s growing role in the talks so far dominated by Pakistan as the mediator.

U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had told reporters in New Delhi earlier that the U.S. would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before considering whether to deal with Iran in “another way”.

There was a “pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the strait of Hormuz, get the strait open, enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter, and hopefully we can pull it off,” Rubio said.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social yesterday, U.S President, Donald Trump, said talks with Iran were going nicely, but warned of fresh attacks if they failed. 

‘’It will only be a great deal for all, or no deal at all,” he wrote.

“Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Doha earlier today for talks on ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict,” AFP quoted a source briefed on the matter as saying.

The source added  that the discussion focused, “on issues relating to the Strait (of Hormuz) and highly enriched uranium. The Central Bank governor is part of the delegation to discuss the issue of frozen funds, which is addressed in the MoU as part of an eventual final deal”.

Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, said the visit was “part of the diplomatic process” and that the delegation would meet with Qatari Premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

The trip was intended to assess whether Washington was serious before Iran accepts a truce deal, IRNA said.

“It appears that some American commitments under this agreement will be implemented with Doha’s assistance,” it said.

The visit was also meant to “ascertain Qatar’s readiness to provide support” with regard to US pledges, it added.

In 2023, $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds from South Korean banks were parked in Qatar pending the release of five American citizens held by Iran.

The funds were never released as ties soured between Washington and Tehran after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.

According to Fars, Washington agreed to release part of Tehran’s funds frozen abroad under international sanctions and to end its naval blockade of ships travelling to and from Iranian ports in exchange for ending the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said some progress had been made in talks with the US, with Pakistan’s mediation, on a large portion of the discussion topics, but it does not mean that the signing of an agreement was imminent.

Meanwhile, Trump has asked countries including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkiye to join the Abraham Accords to normalise relations with Israel as part of an agreement with Iran.

“After all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords,” he wrote in a lengthy social media post.

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