The Trump administration appears to be widening its diplomatic outreach as efforts to end the war with Iran remain stalled and Tehran takes a harder line. Alongside uneven contacts involving Oman, Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, Washington has now reached out to European countries such as Austria and Greece in what appears to be an attempt to add pressure on Iran or soften its position.
The shift comes as the United States and Iran both push for control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route. President Donald Trump is also facing limited room for manoeuvre as the war’s economic fallout and shrinking stocks of key weapons create political problems for Republicans ahead of the November midterm congressional elections.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Austria’s foreign minister in Washington on Tuesday and spoke to Greece’s foreign minister on Wednesday. The State Department’s official summaries of the discussions were routine and did not mention Iran by name. But both foreign ministers then spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday.
Analysts said the involvement of Austria and Greece was less a formal mediation bid and more a sign of a broad push to stop the conflict from worsening. Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said, “Everyone is just urging both sides to stop this reckless game of chicken.” He said Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz had pushed countries that had otherwise stayed on the sidelines to use whatever diplomatic influence they had with both Tehran and Washington.
Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said such efforts may not go far. “While the calls to both sides may entail encouraging both Iran and the US back to the negotiating table, such efforts fall short of mediation, which is a very complex endeavour and requires trust to be built by the mediator with both sides,” she said. She added that it is not something that any country can “just jump into”.
The State Department said on Friday it could not comment on the timing of calls by other countries’ foreign ministers and said Rubio had not asked either Austria or Greece to contact Iran or pass messages to Araghchi. But one European diplomat, briefed on the matter and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the timing of the calls was not accidental. The department did acknowledge that Iran had been discussed in Rubio’s talks, which came as Trump faced political headwinds over a war for which he has offered shifting objectives.
The immediate US priority is no longer being described only as stopping Iran from producing a nuclear weapon. It is now also focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes, and which had been open before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28. “That’s goal number one: keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country,” Vice President JD Vance said in an interview on Fox News Channel on Thursday. He did not mention the strait being open and toll-free for passing ships, as he had done earlier. Vance said the second goal was to ensure that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon.
Austria and Greece are not obvious choices for this role, but both have strong links to the fallout from the conflict. Vienna hosts the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would be central to any settlement on Iran’s nuclear programme, and it also hosted the final talks that led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Greece is a major maritime country in the Mediterranean and has significant shipping interests in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.
Statements from the Austrian, Greek and Iranian foreign ministries showed that Iran was a central topic in the conversations. Greece said Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis had been briefed by Araghchi on “regional developments, and in particular on the ongoing talks regarding the Strait of Hormuz” and that he had stressed “the importance of freedom of navigation and maritime security”. Austria said it had offered to host any further talks with Iran and that Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger had stressed to Araghchi “the urgency of restoring stability in the region through serious diplomatic efforts”. “There can be no military solution,” it said. “A diplomatic solution remains possible. Our priority is to safeguard freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran’s foreign ministry described the calls differently. It said Araghchi had discussed “mechanisms for the future management of the Strait of Hormuz”, which he said had been disrupted by the “unlawful aggression by the United States and the Israeli regime against Iran”. In both calls, he also accused the US of violating the interim deal signed by both sides in June to halt immediate hostilities and begin broader talks to end the war. Overall, the latest contacts show that as the fighting drags on and the Strait of Hormuz remains at the centre of the dispute, more countries are trying to create space for diplomacy even though no clear breakthrough is in sight.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
Source link
[ad_3]