Doha, August 25, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Qatar said on Tuesday that it remains in contact with both the United States and Iran as part of efforts to bring the two sides back to negotiations, amid continuing tensions over the conflict and the Strait of Hormuz.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said officials were holding daily discussions with Washington and Tehran to explore possible ways of returning to the negotiating table.
“Our officials are on the phone on a daily basis trying to workshop ideas, workshop ways of getting back to the negotiations,” Al Ansari said at a weekly media briefing.
On the Strait of Hormuz, Al Ansari called for dialogue and diplomacy, saying the priority was to restore freedom of navigation and reopen the strategic waterway to the conditions that existed before the war.
He also criticised the latest US economic sanctions against Iran as unilateral and reiterated Qatar’s preference for resolving the dispute through diplomatic means, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Iran, meanwhile, has maintained that it will not accept conditions imposed by what it describes as the parties responsible for the conflict.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran had not initiated the war but would not allow its conclusion to be determined by the conditions set by the “aggressive” parties.
Baghaei said Iran remained committed to defending its territory and would not compromise with those parties or surrender to what he described as their “excessive demands”.
He also rejected US claims that the Strait of Hormuz remained open and that millions of barrels of oil were passing through it daily, calling such assertions part of “psychological and media warfare”.
The Iranian spokesperson further criticised Washington’s newly announced economic measures against Tehran, saying Iran would use its “multilateral capacities” to counter the sanctions. He described the US measures as harmful to free trade and national sovereignty.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a fresh round of sanctions against Iran on Monday, saying the measures were aimed at further isolating Tehran and warning of what he called an “economic D-Day”.
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