Qatar Races to Unlock $6bn and Reopen Hormuz Before US Vote

More than $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets is the hinge of indirect talks in Doha that could reopen the strait of Hormuz before the US midterm elections on Tuesday. Qatar is mediating. The talks ran into a third day on Sunday.

The stakes are not abstract. An unidentified missile struck a Pakistan-bound Qatari LNG tanker near the strait on Friday. The attack came just hours after the ship had received direct clearance and safe-passage approval from Tehran. If the safe-passage guarantees are not worth the paper they travel on, the deal framework itself is on borrowed time.

What does Qatar's plan actually involve?

Doha is trying to compress the sequence in which the US lifts sanctions, Iran reopens the strait and nuclear negotiations restart. Iran has agreed to cut the timetable from seven days to two, according to officials involved in the mediation. Araghchi has not been attending the talks in person and is due in Turkmenistan on Monday; other Iranian diplomats are heavily involved.

The compressed timeline matters because neither side trusts the other. Qatar's solution is speed: leave less room for either party to reverse course.

What is Iran offering — and refusing?

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Iran had offered to open the strait within two days of the US lifting the blockade on oil ships, unblocking the release of Iranian assets and ending sanctions on Iranian oil exports. He said he hoped the US would choose "diplomacy over other paths," adding that Iran was ready for both defence and diplomacy, depending on Washington's "rationality." There are, he said, no current plans for direct talks with Washington.

Nuclear diplomacy is a different matter. Ali Nikzad, deputy speaker of Iran's parliament, said Tehran would not negotiate: "Our enemies must understand that the Iranian nation has made a decision not to negotiate on the nuclear issue under any circumstances or under any pressure. This great nation gave its enemies enough opportunity to negotiate in this area, but was faced with repeated breaches of promises and illegal bombing of part of peaceful nuclear facilities."

That position sits awkwardly beside the Doha framework, which names the restart of nuclear talks as a core element. If Nikzad speaks for the leadership, one leg of the three-part deal is missing.

What has Washington said?

Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US had knocked out much of Iran's military but still had to "take care of" one or two targets. He maintained that negotiations to end the war, started by the US and Israel in February, were "going fine but you know they're not very reliable." Tehran has warned of reprisals if attacked.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US was open to a diplomatic solution. Iran's security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, disclosed he had received a letter from vice-president JD Vance seeking to revive talks. He described a positive change in "tone" from the US side but said he had yet to respond.

Rezaei also claimed the war was costing Trump more internationally than Vietnam. He told Iranian TV on Saturday: "Today, wherever Trump goes, he must answer why he started the war against Iran. There is no family in America that has not endured the pressure caused by the war in Iran."

How ready are Gulf states for collapse?

The UAE's envoy, Anwar Gargash, said another round of escalation served no one's interests. He said: "We are also, as we have shown before, braced for the worst." He added: "Relations with Iran are essential, because Iran is our neighbour and we do not want to see it get caught up in a prolonged crisis."

Gulf officials' expectation of failure, voiced before Washington has even responded to the Iranian proposal, is the clearest signal of how fragile the two-day timetable looks. With a Tuesday election deadline, unresolved nuclear red lines and missiles still hitting cleared tankers, the next 48 hours will test whether the compressed sequence can survive contact with either capital.