Iranian negotiators held talks in Doha with Qatari mediators on Saturday, October 31, to discuss paths out of the war in the Gulf, a source briefed on the negotiations told Reuters, as diplomats worked to avert a new outbreak of fighting after the United States midterm elections on Tuesday.
Saturday’s meeting matters because it comes at the end of a narrow window. Countries in the region have been anticipating that United States President Donald Trump, who has held off on strikes on Iran during the weeks leading up to the vote, could restart attacks once voting is over.
Saturday’s talks in the Qatari capital followed more than 12 hours of discussions on Friday between Iranian and Qatari envoys in Tehran, the source said. The source spoke on condition of anonymity and said the talks were being coordinated in regular contacts with Washington.
Iran has repeatedly said it would respond to new attacks by striking at United States and Israeli targets in neighbouring countries, according to Reuters. That warning, combined with the military build-up in the Gulf, is why mediators have treated the days before and after the election as especially dangerous.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued a statement on Saturday ordering the armed forces to be prepared to respond to any attacks. The Iranian military later announced it was taking steps to improve its readiness, Reuters reported.
“Any level or type of threat must be met with an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” Khamenei said on Saturday in the statement posted on his official Telegram account. Reuters noted that Khamenei has not appeared in public since replacing his father, who was slain at the war’s outset.
Khamenei said senior commanders had reported high readiness along the Gulf coast, in and around the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, and on Iran’s northwestern and southeastern borders. The strait is at the centre of the dispute, and its reopening is tied to the competing peace proposals.
Trump launched the war alongside Israel in February, Reuters reported, and he has repeatedly hinted at plans to restart strikes on Iran. Last week he called on Israelis ahead of their own election to keep his wartime ally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power so the two leaders can “finish the job”.
Washington has also lately taken steps to indicate it is open to diplomacy. Earlier this week, Vice President JD Vance, who led the United States delegation at previous rounds of talks with Iran, wrote a letter to a hardline senior Iranian security official, which the New York Times and Wall Street Journal described as an initiative to see if it was possible to restart talks.
Trump played the letter down, saying he approved it only to discuss the possibility of letting more medical supplies into Iran. “I said if you want to do that, that’s ok. Basically, it’s getting supplies in to help people that are not well,” Trump said, according to Reuters.
The Week reported that Vance wrote to General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and that the letter was delivered through Qatari mediators with Trump’s approval. It proposed direct talks led by Vance without preconditions, although Washington insisted that the nuclear programme must be on the agenda from the outset. Iranian leaders are reported to have received the proposal constructively and to have suggested Qatar or Turkey as venues. No agreement has been announced.
In the latest Qatari-mediated discussions, the Qataris brought a proposal to Tehran a week ago for a seven-day plan, under which the United States and Iran would take daily steps to build trust ahead of broader peace talks, the source briefed on the negotiations said. A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Friday that this proposal was not deemed satisfactory by Tehran.
Iran has been proposing its own seven-day plan since September, so far rejected by Trump, Reuters reported. It calls for Washington to lift a blockade of Iranian ports, unfreeze assets and approve an Iranian-backed route through the strait, after which the strait would be reopened.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in remarks reported by Al Jazeera on Saturday that Iran was studying Vance’s letter. He said the Iranian plan was the only proposal on the table to reopen the strait, according to Reuters.
No side has said the Doha talks produced a deal, and the gaps between the two seven-day plans remain public. Qatar’s draft asks both sides to take daily confidence-building steps, while Iran’s plan asks first for the blockade to be lifted and assets to be unfrozen.
What is confirmed is the sequence: Friday’s long session in Tehran, Saturday’s meeting in Doha, regular contact with Washington, and a readiness order from Tehran on the same day. What is not confirmed is whether any of it will hold once the midterm voting is over, or whether the talks will lead to direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
