Iran is “fairly likely” to attend a second round of war talks in Pakistan this week despite the “volatile” situation in the Strait of Hormuz, a Qatari analyst told CNN.
US officials are expected to attend the Pakistan talks today. Tehran has not publicly confirmed it will send representatives to the meetings, with some state media outlets suggesting the talks may not happen, though Iranian sources told CNN a delegation will arrive in Pakistan on Tuesday.
“I think it’s fairly likely we might see an Iranian delegation go,” Rashid Al-Mohanadi, a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told CNN on Monday.
“The strategic options in front of Iran have become quite limited,” Al-Mohanadi added. “Other than war, they only have negotiations on the table. I think the Iranians would like to negotiate, but they would like to negotiate on terms that, apparently, they still disagree on with the US.”
When asked about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and whether the US should have lifted its naval blockade, Al-Mohanadi said this may have been an attempted “confidence-building measure” that ultimately failed to go as planned.
“I think their (Iran’s) assumption was that the US would remove the naval blockade but this didn’t happen. But the likelihood of discussions are quite high. They’re not 100%, anything could happen, and the situation is actually quite volatile at this stage.”
Al-Mohanadi, a Qatari analyst, said the Gulf states’ biggest concern is how to manage Iran as a military threat and address the risks posed by its proxies.
“These things have to be on the table when the discussions happen,” he said.
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