Qatar gives Iran new war-ending draft as Pakistan co-mediates

Qatari mediators have presented Iran with a new draft agreement to end the eight-month war with the United States and Israel, and Tehran is expected to respond by the end of the week, an official briefed on the negotiations said. Pakistan is co-leading the mediation effort with Qatar, according to the account carried by Business Recorder.

The official, who is not Iranian, said the draft was put to Tehran on Sunday and was still under consideration. It sets a seven-day timeline that addresses the concerns of both Tehran and Washington and lays out daily confidence-building steps each side must take. The timeline could begin early next week, with several countries acting as guarantors.

A senior Iranian official involved in the talks described the Qatari move differently, saying Doha had offered only "unacceptable ideas and not an offer", and that Tehran's refusal to show flexibility on the nuclear issue was unchanged.

Washington wants Iran's decades-long nuclear programme to be part of negotiations from the outset. Iran says its own conditions must be met first, among them an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports and the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil exports. It rejects Western concerns that its nuclear programme is military in nature.

The Daily Times reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said diplomats remained in close contact with intermediaries to review workable ideas, and that Iran was giving diplomacy every reasonable chance.

In late September Iran put forward another seven-day proposal under which Araqchi said the Strait of Hormuz could be reopened if certain conditions were met. US President Donald Trump rejected it, prompting further Qatari mediation. The official said Sunday's draft differed from that proposal, though the details were not immediately clear, and that the mediators had coordinated with Washington before going to Tehran.

Earlier mediation produced an interim peace agreement in June, which quickly unravelled.

Oil prices rose more than 1 per cent to above $115 a barrel on Wednesday after a Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia's largest refinery, Ras Tanura. In recent weeks the Yemeni group has repeatedly struck Saudi Arabia and advanced towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, opening a new front in the war that the US and Israel launched on February 28.

On Monday, senior officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye met Iranian officials in Tehran as part of de-escalation efforts. Qatar said on Tuesday that Iran needed to stop threatening Arab Gulf states and open the Strait of Hormuz to show good faith with the mediators.

The official said there were concerns before Sunday's meeting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, contesting a general election, could resume attacks on Iran this week. On Friday, Trump repeated threats to strike Iran again, while Iranian security officials told Reuters that Tehran had drawn up detailed plans to attack Gulf undersea cables if the attacks resumed.