Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has met with Qatari mediators in New York to discuss a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while a United States official said there would be no agreement to end the war unless Tehran’s nuclear programme is addressed.

Araghchi told Iranian state media on Monday that the Qatari  mediators would carry the ideas discussed at the meeting to the US and that he hoped to receive Washington’s final response by Tuesday.

“We talked about ideas and how to find solutions to fulfil Iran’s conditions and how to implement those conditions,” he said. “They had some ideas, and we had a discussion that they will also present to the American side.”

Asked whether he would stay in New York to await the reply, Araghchi said he would fly to Tehran within hours.

“Whenever the Qataris have a response, they know how to get it to us,” he said.

He described the meetings as part of an existing exchange of messages through Qatari and Pakistani mediators, which he said had taken on “a more serious form” since Iran submitted its proposal.

The Iranian plan , announced on Friday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, calls on the US to release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions and end its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Araghchi said those steps could be completed within four or five days, allowing the strait to reopen and negotiations on a final agreement, including on Iran’s nuclear programme, to begin by the seventh day.

US President Donald Trump, however, rejected  the proposal on Saturday, calling it “unacceptable”

The US official, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said indirect discussions were continuing.

The talks were “positive and constructive”, the official said, but stressed there would be no agreement unless Iran’s nuclear programme is addressed. The official said Trump is willing to relieve sanctions and release Iran’s frozen funds in exchange for progress on nuclear issues.

“Iran has indicated they are flexible on the nuclear issues, but the sides still remain apart on the timing of the commitments and who takes which steps first,” the official said.

The official also expressed scepticism of Iran, saying it had broken the memorandum of understanding signed in June by firing on commercial vessels. Tehran denies the accusation and says it was Washington that broke its commitments by failing to halt Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and by seeking to establish alternate shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran had closed the strait, which handled roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies before the war, shortly after the US and Israel launched their offensive on February 28. Iranian attacks on vessels since have sharply curtailed shipping, and oil  prices have risen above $100 a barrel.

Even so, crude exports from major Middle East producers rebounded in September to 12.8 million barrels per day, their highest level since the war began, the Reuters news agency reported, citing data from the maritime intelligence firm Kpler.

That is still well below the 18.8 million bpd exported in February.

Some ships have used the US military-supervised route hugging the coast of Oman, travelling at night with tracking systems off and offloading oil to tankers outside the strait. Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, said on Saturday that American forces had assisted 2,000 transits and more than 1 billion barrels of oil in recent months.

The US has also imposed a blockade on Iranian ports and threatened secondary sanctions against airports and companies that do business with Iranian airlines. The United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Oman have already cancelled related flights.

(Aljazeera)

Like every year, Pushpraj Rimal, a tour planner and taxi driver in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, was looking forward to September for his business to boom.

But what he got instead was a series of cancellations by tourists after catastrophic floods last month killed more than 1,450 people and destroyed key highways, deeply impacting the Himalayan nation heavily dependent on tourism.

“It is still a lockdown kind of situation,” the 42-year-old told Al Jazeera nearly a month after the disaster.

Pushpraj, who speaks Nepali and Hindi, works on commission for several hotels and trekking companies in Kathmandu and the scenic town of Pokhara, known for its lake nestled in the Annapurna mountain range. Pokhara also serves as a base for Himalayan trekkers.

Nepal’s tourist season peaks after the monsoon ends in August and the skies are clearer. Tourism attracts thousands of international travellers, accounting for nearly 8 percent of Nepal’s gross domestic product and employs more than 1 million people.

Last year, Nepal saw more than 1.15 million tourists visiting the country, nearly a third of them during the September-November season.

But the floods this year, triggered by a glacial mountain collapse  along the Nepal-Tibet border in the north, have pushed tourists away from the unaffected areas as well.

“I had rented two cars for two months, but I have done one fourth of the business I usually do in a season. Tourists generally start pouring in from September, but most of them have cancelled this year,” he said.

“I will get no commissions from the hotels or trek organisers, nor has the taxi business worked well. … I am now waiting for the season to end.”

Rimal has two children, Hema, 14, and Rahul, 12, whom he had promised a tablet this Dussain, a prominent Hindu festival that usually falls in October. “But it seems impossible now. I will have to break their hearts and my promise to them for the very first time.”

(Aljazeera)

Hours after US President Donald Trump rejected a diplomatic solution put forward by Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, explosions were heard in the waterway, according to Iranian media.

Reports of blasts near southern Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz suggested that multiple antiship missiles and drones were fired at vessels transiting the waterway against Tehran’s wishes.

While Iranian authorities did not confirm any attacks in the Strait of Hormuz that day, shipping continues to be attacked in the waters, including an Indian cargo ship last week which killed a sailor.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintains that the strait is closed to any ship that does not coordinate with Iranian authorities. On Sunday afternoon, it released video of what it said was a second US underwater drone seizd  this month.

Tehran has issued instructions to shipping companies transiting the Strait of Hormuz to use a temporary route approved by Iranian authorities and pay relevant fees. But it has also said the strait will not fully reopen until the US blockade on Iranian ports ends.

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority announced on Saturday that it would blacklist any shipping charterer company which orders crews to use routes it considers to be unauthorised.

It also published what it described as an apology from an unnamed shipowner blaming commercial pressure from its charterer for trying to pass through the strait.

(Aljazeera