Leavitt now said that Trump would continue to respond to attacks on commercial ships, but that it was hoped that this would not happen. The ceasefire is in force, she emphasized. “We hope we can reach a good agreement.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister for talks in Oman
Meanwhile, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi traveled to Oman for talks on the Strait of Hormuz. There he met the Omani diplomat Abdulasis Al Hinai on Monday at the first meeting of a newly founded committee, as Gharibabadi wrote on X.
Nothing was initially known about the specific content of the conversation with Al Hinai. However, Iran’s deputy foreign minister wrote that the topic was current issues surrounding the strait, as well as the future management of the Strait of Hormuz and the sovereign rights of both coastal states.
Iran’s President calls framework agreement a ‘great victory’
At a meeting with a high-ranking cleric in the religious stronghold of Qom, Iranian President Massoud Peseschkian defended the framework agreement with the USA that was signed almost two weeks ago. “This agreement represents a great victory for the people of Iran,” said the moderate-conservative politician, according to a statement from his office.
After the meeting with Grand Ayatollah Moussa Shobeiri Sanjani, Peseschkian cited, among other things, the lifting of sanctions against the oil sector and the release of frozen assets as successes of the negotiations. A few days ago, leading Iranian clerics called for vigilance in Qom, the center of Shiite learning. The United States remains Iran’s main enemy, it said in a statement.
Expert: Iran does not want to give up leverage
Many ships have used a U.S.-backed route that closely follows the southern edge – the coasts of Oman and the United Arab Emirates. However, Tehran requires ships to take a route along its coast and warned against using the alternative route. “Iran has little interest in watching its political leverage diminish with every ship diverted into Omani waters,” Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group think tank told the Wall Street Journal.
The framework agreement “deliberately relied on flexible wording because that was probably the only way to bring it to conclusion,” said Nicole Grajewski from the elite Parisian university Sciences Po to the New York Times. But it is precisely this lack of clarity that has led to both sides now trying to create facts in their favor on the ground before the details are determined in a final agreement, said the political scientist.
The recent mutual attacks between the US and Iran increased pressure on the tentative agreement to resolve the war, which was already strained by ongoing fighting between Israel and the Iran-allied Hezbollah militia Lebanon is put to the test.
