Trump Meets Qatar PM as Iran Talks Stall
US President Donald Trump is meeting Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at the White House on Monday, November 9, as diplomatic efforts to end the war with Iran continue — though senior US and Gulf officials say no imminent deal is in sight.
What the meeting is about
Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister, visited Tehran last week before travelling to Washington. He is meeting Trump in a closed-door session, and Vice President JD Vance — who led negotiations for a short-lived truce in June — is also scheduled to hold talks with him. Qatar has served as the key mediator between Washington and Tehran since early in the war, relaying proposals and trying to bridge the differences between the two sides.
Iran’s proposal and Washington’s response
Iran’s proposal to end the war involves an end to the US blockade of its ports, the lifting of some sanctions and a halt to bombing, in return for Tehran stopping its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, with talks on its nuclear programme and other sanctions to follow. Iran has said the plan could be condensed into a two-day timeframe. The United States has repeatedly rejected those terms. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday, November 8, that Tehran’s conditions were “outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic”, and that he did not see a diplomatic breakthrough as imminent. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei defended the plan on Monday as the most reasonable offer on the table.
A war in its ninth month
The conflict, which Trump launched alongside Israel on February 28, is now more than eight months old, with no victory in sight. Trump has played down the likelihood of major warfare restarting soon, but he remains unwilling to accept the existing Iranian truce plan. In a phone interview with CNN, he said he was “highly unlikely” to order new attacks on Iran as long as talks to end the conflict progress — though his advisers have given him conflicting advice on next steps, US officials told the Wall Street Journal.
What happens next
The meeting comes days after last week’s US midterm elections, with the administration ramping up diplomacy. US officials say the chances of a quick agreement remain slim, but the channel through Doha stays open — Qatar continues to carry messages between Washington and Tehran while both sides weigh their next move. Any breakthrough would still need Iran to soften its conditions and Washington to accept a phased deal, neither of which has happened so far.
Read more: Iran’s two-day proposal called the most reasonable path — link https://ntmnews.online/?p=4348 — and Trump, Xi and Putin meeting likely at APEC — link https://ntmnews.online/?p=4368
Source: Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Hindu