Adjourned meeting between Iran and Gulf countries scheduled for Monday

“Fhi decided to postpone to a later date the regional meeting that should take place on Monday in Salalah, in order to create the conditions conducive to a constructive dialogue”, announced the official news agency of Oman, ONA.

On social networks, Oman’s Foreign Minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said that the country remains “determined to promote a dialogue that contributes to stability and lasting cooperation in the region”, saying that the meeting had been cancelled “to promote consensus”.

Tehran had announced this meeting and stated that some Gulf countries, without specifying which, and Iraq would participate. However, no country in the region had confirmed its presence and Bahrain had declared that it would not send anyone.

For his part, Donald Trump said today that he “did not care” about the meeting: “It’s their business,” the American President said.

Oman and Iran are the two countries bordering south and north with the strait, where about 20% of world hydrocarbons were transiting before the conflict began in late February, triggered by Israeli-American attacks against Tehran.

Following this, Iran launched attacks on the wealthy oil monarchies of Washington and claimed control of the strait, leading the United States to impose, in retaliation, a blockade of Iranian ports.

An agreement concluded in June between Washington and Tehran collapsed, with both parties in conflict on the issue of the Strait of Ormuz. The attacks started again recently after a month of calming down, and the oil went back over the symbolic threshold of $100 per barrel last week.

Iran and the Sultanate of Oman, who maintain good relations, have been discussing the future management of the strait for several weeks, where navigation was free before the war began.

Iran now demands that ships obtain an authorisation on their part to cross it, invoking security and sovereignty reasons, and is considering a mechanism for charging service fees.

Ships that do not have authorisation are regularly targeted by Iran, while the United States periodically bomb the Iranian coast to challenge Tehran's rule over the strait.

The Huthis, which in July had announced a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia and attacked its oil tankers, took control last week of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait strategy, through which maritime traffic to and from the Suez Canal passes.

With the blockade of Ormuz, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, the kingdom, the world's largest exporter of crude oil, is trapped.