Iran negotiator says US voters rejected war after midterm defeat

Iran's chief negotiator in talks with the United States said on Wednesday that American voters had rejected the war, after Republicans lost the midterm elections, as shipping in the Strait of Hormuz came under fresh attack.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and its lead negotiator, wrote on X that Americans had "said NO TO WAR". "We endorse this message," he wrote, warning that if the US government turned against its public's will, "it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare".

President Donald Trump acknowledged on Tuesday that the Republican Party's poor results were partly caused by the war and the surge in petrol prices that followed it. He said he did not regret the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran launched in February, and told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that the conflict would end "when I say it ends".

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said four oil tankers caught fire after striking naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Two of the vessels were still burning and two more tankers had been intercepted trying to use a prohibited southern route through the strait, the IRGC said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. The BBC said it had not independently verified the claims.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a tanker was struck by two unknown projectiles about 14 nautical miles (26km) north-east of Limah, off Oman's Musandam peninsula, on Tuesday evening. No casualties were reported. On Monday an Indian crew member of a dhow, a wooden sailing boat, was killed in an attack north-east of Limah, and 13 other crew members were rescued by Omani authorities.

The IRGC also said its forces shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the strait on Wednesday. It made a similar claim on Monday night, when US officials said the American military carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island after the IRGC fired on a US aircraft.

Indirect negotiations mediated by Qatar have been stalled for months. President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Tuesday that his government had tried to resolve the crisis "through dialogue", and that "no-one will benefit from this war" if it resumed. He said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had granted the government powers to negotiate "issues that he had previously considered off-limits".

Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqai said on Monday that the basis of the talks remained a seven-step proposal Iran submitted in September, which had been "condensed, making it possible to implement it within two days".

The strait, through which about a fifth of global oil and gas shipments normally pass, was effectively closed after the war began with Iranian missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels and a US naval blockade. A preliminary agreement in June to end the war and reopen the waterway collapsed within weeks. Iran has insisted on keeping some control over the strait and has targeted ships using a southern route through Omani waters, while the US military has been escorting tankers to keep Gulf Arab exports moving.