Qatar, the lead mediator in the US-Iran conflict, is seeking to persuade Tehran to allow UN nuclear weapons inspectors to visit Iran’s bombed nuclear sites, including those housing the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Iran would not be required to make any commitment that the stockpile would be removed from the country, with other options on the table, including reducing the uranium content by down-blending it.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, spoke to Donald Trump about the proposal, the emir’s office said on Friday without revealing the call’s contents.
The state news agency said the emir “emphasised the importance of continuing dialogue and embracing diplomacy as a means of resolving disputes, preventing further escalation in the region”.
Trump is still considering whether to mount a further assault on Iranian nuclear sites, though the credibility of his threats is weaker inside Iran after his vice-president, JD Vance, said the war itself, and not just its cost to American consumers, was critical to the collapse of the Republican vote in the US midterms.
Under the Qatar proposal, the US would immediately lift the naval blockade on Iran in the strait of Hormuz and release a portion of the $۸bn (£۶bn) of its frozen assets. In return, Iran would agree to visits by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to its bombed nuclear facilities, based on a previous abandoned agreement that had been reached in Cairo in September ۲۰۲۵.
Iran would open the strait of Hormuz on the second day, via a route it has already negotiated with Oman that they would jointly lodge with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
Iran has multiple other preconditions for opening the strait including ending the war in Lebanon, a withdrawal of US forces from the Iranian coastline, a commitment to lift some economic sanctions, and agreement to pay war reparations. The sequencing of these commitments has been at the heart of the mediation.
In the memorandum of understanding, a $۳۰۰bn reconstruction and development fund was to be set up to help Iran recover economically, but it was never clear exactly how this proposal was to be funded.
Iran, in a triumphalist mood after Trump’s election wipeout, has been wary of allowing the UN nuclear inspectors back into the country, claiming it had lost faith in Rafael Grossi, the head of the inspectorate.
Tehran claims Grossi betrayed his duty to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, by failing to criticise the US for bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. It fears that material gathered by the inspectors would be handed over as targeting data to the Americans and Israelis.
In the parallel talks on opening the strait, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, spoke again to Iran about the future of the strait administration including the agreed route, the extent to which the agreement is temporary and the need to register the proposal with the IMO, either as a bilateral agreement or a joint regional proposal.
Oman has a long-term proposal for the administration of the strait compliant with the law of the sea in that shipping companies would be charged only for services, and not tolls.
Amir Hayat Moqaddam, the deputy chair of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) on Tuesday that ships from four countries – China, India, Qatar and Iraq – were allowed to pass through the strategic waterway.
The exemptions served mutual interests, he said, adding that Iran charged Indian and Chinese vessels transit fees while allowing Qatari ships to pass free of charge. Medicine was received from India, while China provided political support.
It is reported that of the ۱۰.۲۳m barrels a day of Gulf crude that passed through the strait in October, about ۴۲% went to China and ۱۳% to India, said Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at the analytics firm Kpler.
The navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two “violating” oil tankers attempting to pass through an unauthorised route in the eastern sector of the strait of Hormuz had collided with mines and caught fire.
The IRGC said the two tankers had turned off their navigation and identification systems and that the attempted crossing was with the support of US military forces.
