Iran's foreign minister has said Tehran is still giving diplomacy a chance to end its eight-month war with the United States and Israel, even as a senior Iranian official dismissed the latest ideas put forward by Qatari mediators as unacceptable. Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday that Iran remained in close contact with intermediaries and was reviewing ideas that could put its own seven-day proposal into practice, adding that the plan could be carried out in less than a week.

A gap over sequence, not just substance

The disagreement, as reported, turns largely on order. Washington wants Iran's nuclear programme addressed from the start of any negotiation, while Tehran says its own conditions must come first, including an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports and the lifting of sanctions on its oil exports. Iran rejects Western concerns that its nuclear programme is military in nature. Qatar, together with Pakistan, has led the mediation, and an official briefed on the talks said a draft presented on Sunday set out daily confidence-building steps, with several countries acting as guarantors.

Why the next few days matter

The same reporting notes that Tehran is expected to respond to the draft by the end of the week, and that the proposed timeline could begin early next week. At the same time, the war has already spread beyond its original front, with Yemen's Houthi forces launching repeated attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. That widening of the conflict is one reason mediators, markets and neighbouring governments are watching whether this week's diplomatic contact produces anything firmer than another exchange of proposals.

Sources: Reuters via BusinessWorld, Just Security.