Iran and the United States are still far apart, Qatar's mediators are back in Doha, and both sides owe an answer within days

The talks turn on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's conditions, set out in a seven point plan Tehran put forward in September, include waiving sanctions on its oil, ending the American naval blockade and releasing frozen Iranian funds. Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X that the American response "was not convincing" and that Washington "must fully and explicitly address Iran's seven conditions and act upon them." "Only in this case will the Strait of Hormuz be reopened," he wrote. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said the strait could reopen within two days of an agreement.

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, said both the United States and Iran were reviewing proposals the mediators had put forward, and that talks were continuing after the Qatari team returned from Tehran. The senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had also warned Trump about what it called strong hints from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would attack later this week. Netanyahu's bloc failed to win a majority in Israel's election last week, and Israeli results were due to go to President Herzog on Wednesday.

Trump told the Financial Times that indirect negotiations with Iran over its stockpile of enriched uranium were ongoing. "We're having discussions, and we'll see how that all works out," he said. He declined to rule out a resumption of American combat operations now that the midterm elections are over. American media have reported that Central Command has prepared plans to strike Iranian targets. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group has been reported near the Strait of Malacca and is expected in the Central Command area next week.

Araghchi said on Tuesday that talks with Saudi Arabia were continuing on new regional security arrangements that would exclude foreign military involvement. That is Tehran's longer game, a Gulf order without American bases. Washington's position, as Trump stated it during the campaign, is that any deal must address the nuclear programme, not only the strait. The two positions have not met yet, and the mediators' 36 hour clock, as of Tuesday, is the next fixed point.