US President Donald Trump spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, US envoy Sergio Gore said. Their conversation focused on the conflict in the Middle East (or West Asia), “including the importance of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open,” according to Gore X’s post.
Prime Minister Modi wrote on
The conversation comes at a time when Donald Trump has raised hopes that the US-Israeli war on Iran may end. Trump said on Monday that his administration was already holding “productive” talks with Tehran; He extended, by five days, his deadline to strike power plants above the Iranian bottleneck on the main oil shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian officials said Trump backed down “after Iran’s stern warning,” but there were mixed signals from Tehran about whether talks were already underway.
Prime Minister Modi also spoke to President Masoud Pezeshkian over the weekend, though details were not shared about a proposal, if any, for mediation.
Pakistan, India’s unfriendly neighbor, has emerged as one of four countries said to mediate between Washington and Tehran. The other three are Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.
Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi told Parliament that he was in regular contact with several Gulf countries and the United States. He was calling for a solution through dialogue.
Prime Minister Modi said: “Since the beginning of the war, I have held two rounds of telephone conversations with the presidents of most West Asian countries. We are in constant contact with all Gulf countries, and we are also in contact with Iran, Israel and the United States.”
“Through diplomacy, India is trying to ensure safe transportation of the country’s ships even in war. India has chosen the solution through dialogue to resolve this issue,” Prime Minister Modi added.
The Prime Minister said that India’s priority is to ensure the safety of the large Indian community in the Gulf.
At an inter-ministerial press conference, Rajesh Sinha, Special Secretary in the Indian Ministry of Shipping, clarified that there was no request for permission to transit the Strait of Hormuz. “It is an international strait. Permission was not required before. It is not required even today. You certainly assess the situation in terms of how safe it is, how one should move, at what time one should move, but still it is not required for anyone to get permission,” he said.
Where does the war stand now amid the “talks” and demands?
The death toll in the war, which began after the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Tehran on February 28, has risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran; and more than 1,000 in Lebanon; 15 in Israel, 13 American military personnel, in addition to a number of civilians on land and at sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people have been displaced in Lebanon, as Israel expands the scope of its military action, saying it is striking the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.
While Iran may have denied any talk for the record, US CBS News quoted an unnamed senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official as saying that Tehran “has received points from the United States through intermediaries and they are being reviewed.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi’s office confirmed that he has been discussing the conflict with some of his counterparts since Monday. He spoke to officials from Azerbaijan, Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and Turkmenistan.
However, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who has emerged as a potential representative of the Iranian side, said that no negotiations had taken place as of Monday. Ghalibaf, the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, even claimed that Trump’s comments were aimed at manipulating the financial and oil markets.
(with PTI inputs)
