RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Iran said on Monday it was not currently holding negotiations with the United States, while a regional official said there was "significant" progress in ongoing mediation efforts amid a halt in recent fighting between the two sides.
"At present, we are not engaged in any negotiations with the United States," the Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, denying reports that Iran had requested talks.
“Mediators may convey messages to us from the American side regarding ongoing developments in the region. But at present, we have no negotiations with the American side,” Baghaei added.
US President Donald Trump ordered a halt to daily strikes on Iran over the weekend, with UN ambassador Mike Waltz saying Washington remained “locked and loaded” for more attacks and that “more assets have gone into the region,” but that Trump was “giving talks some space — he’s giving it a little bit of room.”
The two regional officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press to discuss the sensitive regional talks, said mediators led by Qatar and Pakistan were working to bridge the gap between Washington and Tehran to return to an interim ceasefire deal that had been largely undermined by the recent exchanges of fire.
One of the regional officials who spoke to AP Monday described the progress made in mediation efforts as “significant.” He said mediators were working with Iran and Oman on a mechanism for managing vessels’ transit through the Strait of Hormuz, which was the trigger for the latest round of strikes and counterstrikes between Iran and the US.
Baghaei also said on Monday that the US is not involved in the talks with Oman over the administration of the Hormuz.
"These talks have no connection with the United States. They are a bilateral matter between Iran and Oman, and they are continuing," Baghaei said, adding that the waterway "remains closed."
Tehran has asserted that the interim deal with the US allows it to manage shipping on the waterway for now, and it has objected to US efforts to support a route through the strait that passes close to Oman instead. The strait was considered an international waterway before the war.
The US military on Saturday said its recently reimposed naval blockade against Iran continued, with a dozen commercial ships redirected, two disabled and two boarded. US forces “remain highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready,” it added.
Trump's decision to suspend the aerial campaign reflected advice from his top brass that the bombing, aimed at breaking Iran's grip on the strait, had reached the limits of what it could achieve, according to a US official and widespread US media reports.
The US official told Reuters that military commanders had advised the president that they were running out of targets. The official said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, had also expressed concern over the depletion of air defence weapons used to protect US bases in the region.
Similar reports indicating that civilian and military aides had advised Trump to halt the campaign were carried over the weekend by the New York Times, CNN, Axios and other news outlets.
Baghaei noted on Sunday that neighboring countries also carried out strikes against Iran, confirming reports of strikes by Gulf countries against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has been regularly attacking Gulf nations since the outbreak of war in February, citing their cooperation with and hosting of US troops.
"Against all norms of international law and the principle of being a good neighbor, these countries opened their territory to parties attacking Iran," Baghaei said.
"In some cases, we know that they independently participated in the military aggression against Iran."
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Bahrain and Kuwait, which came under daily attacks from Iran this month, carried out secret strikes on Iranian drone and missile depots, with the support of the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE carried out its own attacks on Iran earlier in the war.
The US and Israel jointly launched a bombing campaign on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize its regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Iran responded with missile and drone strikes across the region and by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, which previously carried about a fifth of the world’s commercial oil shipments. Hezbollah joined the fighting in support of Iran, by opening fire on Israel.
The fighting entered a truce on April 8, and the US and Iran last month reached a memorandum of understanding for peace talks. Israel was not a party to the agreement or the talks. The US has since attacked Iran in response to the Islamic Republic’s continued attacks on Hormuz shipping.
Israel has also sought to reach a separate US-brokered deal with Lebanon, which will see Israel gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon and have the Lebanese military deploy to ensure that Hezbollah does not return.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
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