Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi travelled to Doha for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani on a possible agreement between the United States and Iran to end the conflict in the Middle East, a source privy to details of the visit told Reuters on 25 May.
Discussions centred on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s highly enriched uranium reserves.
The governor of Iran’s Central Bank also joined the delegation to discuss the possible unfreezing of Iranian funds as part of the final agreement.
Separately, the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars reported on 25 May that Qalibaf had been re-elected to head Iran’s parliament.
Earlier, US officials described the talks with Tehran as about “90-95 per cent” complete, calling the new deal fundamentally different from the 2015 nuclear deal made under the Obama presidency, which President Donald Trump abandoned during his first term.
At the same time, Iran’s foreign ministry said the two sides had “reached a conclusion on a significant part of the issues under discussion” but that an agreement was not imminent.
Since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran on 28 February, Tehran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz – a key maritime bottleneck – causing oil prices to surge globally.