Tehran,.- Iran stated this Wednesday that it has received messages from the United States in which Washington expresses its willingness to return to fulfilling the commitments assumed in the memorandum of understanding signed in June, but indicated that it has not yet decided whether it will agree to resume negotiations.
“We have received messages from the United States indicating that it is fully willing to return to fulfilling its commitments,” stated Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi in an interview with the state agency IRNA, while responding to recent statements by U.S. President Donald Trump regarding a supposed resumption of talks between the two countries.
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Gharibabadi said that Tehran has not yet decided whether it will resume negotiations with Washington and that it continues to analyze the messages sent by the White House to determine if there are sufficient guarantees that the United States will fulfill its commitments and avoid a new breakdown of the process.
“All messages must be analyzed. We must also look to the future so as not to re-enter a vicious cycle in which, two or three weeks later, we find ourselves once again facing new military confrontations,” he stated.
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The diplomat insisted that compliance with U.S. obligations is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and denied again that the United States is participating in the talks that Iran is holding with Oman regarding the management of that strategic maritime passage.
According to the deputy minister, Tehran and Muscat are close to reaching an agreement to establish a new temporary shipping route in Hormuz, which could be maintained for a period of between two and four months while the evolution of the regional situation is evaluated.
Gharibabadi explained that this new route will partially run through Iranian and Omani territorial waters and will allow the transit of commercial vessels under a new management scheme, replacing the provisional routes established until now by Iran and Oman.
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Hours earlier, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Ismail Bagaei, stated to Iranian state television that Tehran and Muscat have reached an agreement on the geographical characteristics of a new shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz and are in the final phase of drafting a joint statement regarding that understanding.
The potential agreement comes after Trump claimed he called off an attack on Iran over the weekend to allow room for negotiations that he announced would begin on Monday, something Tehran denied.
Iran and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17, mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, to end the war, but hostilities resumed in early July, leading Tehran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz and Washington to re-establish the naval blockade off the Iranian coast.
