Qatari mediators put proposals to Iran on Sunday, October 25, aimed at ending its eight-month war with the United States and Israel, but accounts of what they offered differ. An official briefed on the negotiations, who is not Iranian, told Reuters it was a new draft deal with a seven-day timeline of steps by both sides, guaranteed by several countries; a regional source told Axios the Qataris presented ideas for bridging the two sides' positions; a senior Iranian official said Qatar had offered only "unacceptable ideas and not an offer," while Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Iran is reviewing ideas with the mediators. A day later, senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, the members of the new Mecca mutual-defence pact, held their first high-level talks with Iran in Tehran, where a Pakistani official said Pakistan's army chief presented a proposal of his own. The White House has told mediators it will weigh in once Iran answers, a regional source told Axios, which reports that without a last-minute deal a renewed bombing offensive appears likely soon after the November 3 U.S. midterm elections. Iran says it is giving diplomacy a chance but will not move on its nuclear program until its own conditions are met, and it rejects Western concerns that the program is military in nature; Washington wants the nuclear program on the table from the start.
The war itself began during an earlier round of diplomacy: the United States and Israel launched it on February 28, two days after Oman-mediated talks in Geneva ended without a breakthrough. Oman's foreign minister said then that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of any uranium, while President Trump said Iran was "not willing to give us what we have to have."
What Qatar put on the table
The official briefed on the talks said the Qatari draft lays out "daily confidence-building steps that each side must take" over seven days, could start early next week, and differs from a seven-day plan Iran itself proposed in September, which President Trump rejected. A response from Tehran is expected by the end of this week. The official said the Qatari mediators had coordinated with Washington before going to Tehran. Axios, citing U.S., Israeli and regional sources, reported that the Qataris, whose negotiator Ali al-Thawadi was in Tehran this week, are trying to persuade Iran to let United Nations inspectors visit its bombed nuclear sites in return for some U.S. sanctions relief, such as waivers to sell oil and the release of frozen funds for food and other humanitarian goods. One idea is to revive an inspection agreement Iran reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo in September 2025. The ideas are meant to bridge the U.S. demand that Iran give up its enriched-uranium stockpile and Iran's insistence that the United States first lift its naval blockade and release frozen funds. "There is some movement. We are waiting for the Iranian response," a regional source told Axios. "The idea is that the Iranians will be able to say that they didn't give up the enriched uranium up front, and the U.S. will be able to say that it got some nuclear concessions from Iran." The source said Iran would seek the approval of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear inspectorate, told the Security Council on Tuesday that remote monitoring had found no sign of attempts to repair or rebuild the bombed sites, but that inspectors, withdrawn for their safety when the strikes began in June 2025, still cannot confirm Iran has not diverted nuclear material, including 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that remains unaccounted for. He said Iran had agreed to let inspectors into an enrichment plant at Isfahan that it declared just before the June 2025 strikes, but the attacks prevented the visit, and Iran has rejected repeated requests for access since then. The agency's board reported Iran to the Security Council in September for breaching its nonproliferation obligations, a decision Tehran called political and unlawful.
The senior Iranian official also said Tehran would show no flexibility on its nuclear program. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon; President Pezeshkian told Fox News in September that Tehran was open to lowering its enrichment levels: "We said we're willing to dilute them. It's not a big deal. We are willing to submit ourselves to verification." Araghchi wrote on Wednesday that "Iran continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed" and that Tehran remains "in close and ongoing contact with intermediaries to review ideas that can ensure implementation of our 7-Day Plan." Iran's conditions include ending the U.S. naval blockade of its ports and lifting sanctions on its oil exports; Washington wants its nuclear program on the table from the start. Qatar's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Iran should stop threatening Gulf Arab states and open the Strait of Hormuz to show good intentions.
The Mecca pact visit
Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met President Masoud Pezeshkian, Araghchi and Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei on Monday. Saudi Arabia said the visit aimed to open channels to "prevent the return of military escalation" and to support Qatar's and Pakistan's mediation. The four countries agreed to keep talking about regional peace and security. A senior Pakistani security official told Reuters the focus was a regional non-aggression network, with an agenda that included U.S.-Iran talks, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. blockade. Another Pakistani official said Munir, with Trump's go-ahead to try diplomacy, offered a solution that would give something to both Washington and Tehran, without giving details, and that the pact states and Qatar could be guarantors. Pakistan's military media office and Turkey's Foreign Ministry did not respond to Reuters.
Rezaei said the visit showed "American threats have little impact on countries around the world." Pezeshkian said, "The four countries believe that cooperation among them offers a way out of the crises facing the region." Axios, citing a U.S. official and a regional source, reported that the visitors also told Iran a deal may be the only way to avoid major attacks after the midterms, and that the Saudis afterward asked Trump not to rush into war. The three states signed their pact on August 7 and invoked it this month after Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of encouraging the Houthis' escalation, and Tehran denies any role in the attacks. Pakistan has approved the pact and Turkey's parliament is considering it; Egypt's parliament authorized military support for Saudi Arabia on Monday.
Washington's position
"We need to finish the job — either through a deal or another way — we will find out if negotiations can succeed," Trump told Axios on Wednesday. A White House official said Iran had been "systematically destroyed, both militarily and financially, and unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job." Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, reacting to media reports of a possible deal, wrote on Thursday that "the carrot-and-stick approach has no effect on Iran" and that any progress would come only if Iran's seven conditions were accepted, the Tasnim news agency, which is linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, reported in Persian (Profoundd's translation). Vice President JD Vance has said Iran must reduce nuclear enrichment to end the war. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Vance has written to Rezaei to restart negotiations; according to the Times, the letter was carried by Qatari mediators, delivered on Sunday and proposed an early meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials, with Vance offering to lead the U.S. team. Trump told reporters he had not sought to renew peace talks and that "they [Iran] need help with medical supplies and various things." Tasnim also confirmed Thursday that the letter had arrived but said Tehran had not replied and would not drop its core conditions, and a senior security source quoted by the official IRNA news agency said media speculation about the letter's contents was inaccurate. Iranian security officials have told Reuters that Iran has plans to attack undersea cables in the Gulf if the United States and Israel strike again.
The war has not paused while the diplomats talk. Oil rose above $115 a barrel on Wednesday after a Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery, Reuters reported. Late Thursday the Saudi-led coalition said its air defenses had shot down two ballistic missiles the Houthis fired at Riyadh, after AFP correspondents in the capital heard at least eight explosions; earlier that day the Houthis had said a Saudi strike on a residential area of western Yemen killed 12 people. Early Friday the coalition said on X that it had intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone in the Mecca region, AFP reported; the Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Saree, denied it, saying the group had carried out no operation against Saudi territory that day and that its targets are "oil facilities and military bases," Al Jazeera reported. Israel and Iran have not exchanged direct fire since an April ceasefire, but U.S.-Iranian hostilities, mainly over control of the Strait of Hormuz, have continued, the Financial Times reports. An interim agreement reached through earlier mediation in June unraveled within weeks.
On Thursday Iran's Revolutionary Guards said three tankers had struck mines and caught fire while trying to leave through a southern shipping lane, a route Iran calls unauthorized. The United States has encouraged ships to use that lane, and Trump declared it mine-free at the end of August. Iran's navy later reported a tanker hit by mines east of the strait, which CBS News described as another. The Associated Press said it could not confirm the Guards' account, Gulf News reported. U.S. Central Command, which commands American forces in the Middle East, had called Iranian media claims that ships were hitting mines "false" the day before, saying the main transit routes "have been cleared of sea mines by US forces and remain so," and the Guards answered on Thursday: "Prove your claim of mine-clearing in the Strait of Hormuz with independent evidence, not a statement!" The British navy's maritime trade center, known as UKMTO, separately reported a tanker hit by an unknown projectile on Thursday while it was leaving the strait; CBS News reported that the ship was on the southern route. On Friday UKMTO said a tanker that caught fire on Thursday about 25 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman, on its way out of the strait, had been approached by a small boat that attached two explosive devices to its hull; the blasts started a fire in the engine room, the crew put it out and the ship continued its voyage. UKMTO's reports did not say who carried out the attacks, and Reuters reported that it was not immediately clear who was behind the Khasab attack. Neither Reuters nor Al Jazeera, reporting UKMTO's update, said whether the Khasab tanker was the one hit by a projectile or one of the tankers the Guards described.
This article reflects reporting through early Friday, October 30, 2026. Sources: Reuters via BusinessWorld, October 29, Al-Monitor, October 26, and Cyprus Mail, October 27; Axios, October 28; Al Jazeera, October 26; Hurriyet Daily News, October 27; Arab News, October 28; CBS News, October 28-29, and its live updates (including AFP), October 29; Middle East Eye, October 28, on Central Command; Gulf News, October 30; Reuters via Arab News Pakistan, October 30, on UKMTO; AFP via Arab News Pakistan and Al Jazeera's live updates, October 30, on the drone and UKMTO's update; Al Arabiya (on Tasnim) and IRNA, October 29; the Financial Times via The Irish Times, October 29; on the war's start and the Geneva talks, Al Jazeera and AFP via The Defense Post, February 28; Arab News Pakistan, October 27, on the IAEA briefing; Fox News, September 24; Tasnim (Persian), October 29.
