Saint Petersburg (AFP) – Iran’s top diplomat blamed Washington on Monday for the failure of Middle East peace talks during a visit to Russia, where President Vladimir Putin promised him Moscow’s support in bringing the war to a close. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Saint Petersburg on the fourth leg of a whirlwind diplomatic tour, having sandwiched a trip to Oman in between two visits to main mediator Pakistan over the past few days. Islamabad hosted the first and only round of unsuccessful US-Iran talks, and Araghchi’s visit had fanned hopes for fresh negotiations over the weekend, until US President Donald Trump scrapped a planned trip by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
“The US approaches caused the previous round of negotiations, despite progress, to fail to reach its goals because of the excessive demands,” Araghchi said Monday. After nixing his emissaries’ trip, Trump told Fox News that if Iran wanted talks, “they can call us” — though he has said the cancellation does not signal a return to hostilities. Following their meeting, Putin and Araghchi both voiced their commitment to the two countries’ “strategic relationship”. Putin promised that Russia would “do everything that serves your interests…so that peace can be achieved,” state media reported.
Araghchi said the war with the US and Israel had shown the world “Iran’s true power” and the stability of its governing system. But back home in Tehran, the outlook was more sober. “Everything in the country is up in the air right now. I have not worked for a long time…Other people I am in contact with are not working either,” said one small business owner named Farshad who spoke to Paris-based AFP journalists. “The country is in complete economic collapse…The situation has gotten really scary.”
In a sign that back-channel diplomatic efforts were ongoing, the Fars news agency said Iran had passed “written messages” to the Americans via Pakistan spelling out red lines, including nuclear issues and the Strait of Hormuz. US media outlet Axios — citing a US official and two other sources — reported on Sunday that Iran had sent a new proposal to end the war centred on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending a US naval blockade there, with nuclear negotiations postponed. Iranian state news agency IRNA cited the report without denying it. Trump, meanwhile, was expected to hold a meeting with his top national security advisers on Monday to discuss the stalled talks and how to proceed, Axios and ABC News reported.
Though the ceasefire has so far held, the war’s economic shockwaves have continued to reverberate. Tehran resident Shervin said he was trying to keep his head up despite a lack of work, “but at the same time it is the first time that I have reached a point where I was late on my rent.” Iran has blockaded Hormuz, cutting off flows of oil, gas, and fertiliser and sending prices soaring. In response, the US has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports in the waterway and beyond. Trump is facing domestic pressure to find an off-ramp as fuel prices rise, with midterm elections due in November and polls showing the war is unpopular among Americans.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, however, have said they have no intention of easing their market-rattling chokehold. Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission in Iran’s parliament, told state television Monday that a proposed law for managing the strait would make the Islamic republic’s armed forces the overseeing authority, with financial gains from the waterway to be paid in Iranian rial. Gulf states are also suffering from the strait’s closure after absorbing weeks of Iranian drone and missile barrages that shut their skies and damaged their vital oil and gas infrastructure during the war. A senior UAE official on Monday criticised Gulf neighbours over what he called their weak stance on Iran.
Gulf monarchies have always had “difficult relations” with Tehran, presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said, but their longstanding policy of containment has “failed miserably, and we are now facing a major reassessment.”
Violence, meanwhile, has continued on the war’s Lebanese front, despite a recently extended ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war by firing rockets at Israel to avenge the death of Iran’s supreme leader, with Israel responding with strikes and a ground invasion. The group’s leader Naim Qassem on Monday rejected planned direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel as a “grave sin” that would destabilise the country, vowing Hezbollah “will not back down.” Shortly afterwards, the Israeli military said it had begun hitting Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Israel maintains that under the terms of the truce, it can act against imminent threats.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, responding to Qassem, said his “goal is to reach an end to the state of war with Israel.” “What we are doing is not treason,” he said of the negotiations. “Rather, treason is committed by those who take their country to war to achieve foreign interests.”
© 2024 AFP
