Pakistan seeks breakthrough in US-Iran peace talks

WASHINGTON/DUBAI (Reuters):  Iran's foreign minister met Pakistan's interior minister on Friday to discuss proposals to end the U.S.-Israeli war, Iranian ​media reported, with Tehran and Washington still at odds over Tehran's uranium stockpile and controls on the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Two days after presenting the Iranians ‌with the latest U.S. message in the negotiations, Syed Mohsin Naqvi held another round of talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim and ISNA news agencies reported.

 

Naqvi was facilitating communication to try and achieve a framework for ending the war and resolving differences, ISNA reported.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday there had been "some good signs" in the talks, but there could be no solution ​if Tehran enforced a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz, which it effectively closed to most shipping after the war began on February 28.

 

"There's some good signs," Rubio ​said. "I don't want to be overly optimistic ... So, let's see what happens over the next few days."

A senior Iranian source told Reuters on ⁠Thursday that gaps had been narrowed, although uranium enrichment and the Strait of Hormuz remained among the sticking points.

The war has wreaked havoc on the global economy, with the surge ​in oil prices stoking fears of rampant inflation. About a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas shipments travelled through the Strait of Hormuz before the war.

 

The U.S. dollar ​was near its highest level in six weeks on Friday amid the uncertainty over the peace talks, while oil prices climbed as investors doubted the prospects of a breakthrough.

 

"We're coming to the end of week 12, we're six weeks in the ceasefire, and I'm just not really that convinced we're any closer to a resolution between the U.S. and Iran," Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG, said of the Middle ​East war.