Iran is not currently holding talks with the United States and is now in discussions with Oman over a temporary safe route through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday.
Baghaei added that reaching an agreement with Oman is not sufficient to reopen the strait, as the situation will remain unchanged while US “aggression” continues.
He said that there was no plan to send or receive a delegation during “these days”.
Speaking on the new Hormuz path, Baghaei said that the route being discussed would be one path with entry and exit lanes
US military asks for ‘unconventional’ ideas from troops to ‘punish Iran’
According to a CNN report released on Monday, a senior officer at the US military command carrying out the US war on sent an email request to troops for ideas on how to “punish Iran”.
“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” the officer in US Central Command’s intelligence branch wrote in a message sent on Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message.
A second source also said that a senior US military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.
CNN reported that the crowdsourcing-style query wass one sign of the limited — and potentially unpalatable —options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms, an option , which military officials said was unusual over email.
The official at CENTCOM began the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had better ideas. The second source said CENTCOM acknowledged it needs to reevaluate the strategy by looking at everything.
“US Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,” Capt. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, said in a statement. “Admiral Cooper, in particular, reaches out to members of our great team, regardless of rank, to achieve the highest levels of operational performance possible.”
Trump says US-Iran talks to begin Monday after shelving planned strike
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that talks with Iran will begin Monday afternoon, expressing optimism that an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s “denuclearisation” could soon be reached.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Trump said conversations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Iran had prompted him to cancel a “massive attack” on Friday.
“We were asked by the three primary groups. We were also asked by Iran very strongly,” he said. “They said we’d like to make a deal.”
He said the planned military operation was called off after Iran and neighbouring countries urged Washington to hold back.
“It was going to be a massive attack. They asked us not to do it. They said: ‘Please don’t do it.’ Their neighbours said that too. We are just going to see whether or not we can make a deal,” he said.
“They didn’t want us to do it, and frankly, Saudi Arabia didn’t want it either. They thought that a deal is imminent … having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also ultimately denuclearisation,” he added.
Asked whether Iran had a deadline to reach an agreement, Trump said there was no set timeline.
“We’ll just see,” he said, while emphasising that the US remained prepared to use military force if necessary.
“We’re ready to go anytime we want. Would I rather make a deal? I’m not looking to kill people because people die, a lot of people die, and we don’t want that,” he said.
He said the planned operation would have been “disastrous” for Iran and claimed it would have taken the country “many, many years” to rebuild.
Asked whether the operation would have targeted Iran’s energy infrastructure, Trump declined to elaborate.
Iraq’s SOMO offers deep discounts for oil loading inside Hormuz, document shows
Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO has offered steep discounts on its August-loading Basrah crude to entice buyers to lift cargoes from inside the Strait of Hormuz, a document reviewed by Reuters showed.
SOMO invited term buyers to nominate their contractual volumes of Basrah Medium or Basrah Heavy crude on a free-on-board basis from the Basrah Oil Terminal or Iraq’s single-point moorings and associated facilities, the document showed.
For Basrah Medium, SOMO offered discounts of $25 to $27 a barrel to the relevant destination benchmarks, depending on the loading window. It offered discounts of $27.80 to $29.80 a barrel for Basrah Heavy.
SOMO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran executes two accused of spying
Iranian news outlet ISNA said on Monday that two Israeli “mercenaries” who were caught sending “coordinates, images, and information on military and security centers to Mossad officers and communication channels affiliated with this espionage service” were executed.
قوه قضاییه: امید بهزاد و پوریا صفوت، ۲ مزدور اسرائیل که در جریان جنگ رمضان و جنگ ۱۲ روزه با ارسال مختصات، تصاویر و اطلاعات مراکز نظامی و امنیتی برای افسران موساد و کانالهای ارتباطی وابسته به این سرویس جاسوسی کمک شایانی به آنها در رسیدن به اهداف خود کرده بودند اعدام شدند
— خبرگزاری ایسنا (@isna_farsi) August 3, 2026
Explosion reported near tanker off Oman: UK maritime agency
An explosion was reported early on Monday near a tanker off the coast of Oman, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said.
The agency said it received a report of an incident about 20 nautical miles northeast of the town of Khasab after the master of the tanker reported hearing an explosion in close proximity to the vessel.
The vessel and its crew were reported safe while authorities launched an investigation into the incident, UKMTO said.
The agency also advised vessels transiting the area to exercise caution and report any suspicious activity.
Hormuz will never return to pre-war state: Baghaei
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said that the Strait of Hormuz will never return to its pre-war state, stressing that the agreement with Oman does not mean reopening the strait, according to IRNA.
Speaking in a televised interview on Sunday night, Baghaei said that discussions between Tehran and Muscat over the future of the Strait of Hormuz had been underway for some time, with the aim of reaching a specific framework to ensure safe maritime navigation in the area.
“Under no circumstances will the Strait of Hormuz return to the situation before the war (February 28),” Baghaei said.
Greek shipper Gas Log says LNG tanker stable after Strait of Hormuz incident
A liquefied natural gas vessel controlled by Greek shipping company Gas Log was stable after an incident while exiting the Strait of Hormuz, with everyone on board safe and accounted for, the company said.
An “incident” had occurred on its Gas Log Shanghai LNG vessel on July 31, said Gas Log in a statement. It did not provide details about the incident or whether the ship or its cargo had sustained any damage.
“Gas Log LNG Services immediately activated their emergency plan, notified all relevant authorities, and is currently assessing the condition of the vessel and assure the safety of our people,” the statement said.
The Gas Log Shanghai had loaded an LNG cargo at Qatar’s Rash LAFSA export terminal on July 27-28, according to ship-tracking data from analytics firms Kepler and LSE.
The vessel was observed inside the Strait of Hormuz on July 31, before reappearing outside the waterway on August 2, the data showed. Ship-tracking data show the vessel is currently off Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, just outside the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.
Quaternary did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of business hours.
Trump’s threats
Trump has repeatedly issued threats that he would escalate the war on Iran he launched along with Israel in late February, only to allow more time for talks, which have so far not led to a comprehensive deal.
Read: Negotiations between Iran and Oman over Hormuz in final stages, Tehran says
Trump’s apparent de-escalation after days of threats of new attacks from each side was the latest twist in the war. Attacks have spread across the Gulf to the Red Sea and even a Mediterranean facility in Egypt.
Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, before the start of the war, causing energy prices to rise and stoking broader inflation.
The US president has argued that his stated goal of keeping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons justifies higher fuel costs in the near term, but the economic pain has put political pressure on him to find a way to end the conflict.
Oil prices were down more than 4% in early trading on Monday.
Iranian diplomacy
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held phone calls with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir to discuss diplomatic efforts, Iran’s state media reported on Sunday.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported earlier that negotiations between Tehran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz were in their final stages, citing Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said negotiations were focused on agreeing a new route through the strait, adding that it had “no link to the Strait of Hormuz being opened or closed. That is a separate discussion.”
Read more: Top Iranian commander warns countries serving as defensive shield for US will ‘burn in flames of war’
Last month Iran publicly rejected an Omani proposal, backed by Gulf states, to manage the strait they share. People familiar with the matter had told Reuters the plan included the collection of voluntary fees for using the strait.
Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said there was close security and intelligence coordination between Israel and the US on everything happening in the region.
But he added: “With or without an agreement, and regardless of any external commitments, if Iran attempts to renew its nuclear program or advance its ballistic missile industries, we will be there. We will take action, and we will strike.”
Trump and Netanyahu met on Tuesday in Washington, with an Israeli official saying they had explored all possible paths to curb Iran’s nuclear program, including diplomacy, economic pressure and force. Tehran denies it is seeking a nuclear weapon.
Israel ‘left in dark’ on joint Iran attack, knew Trump’s decision to call off strike from social media
US President Donald Trump has left Israel in the dark on a planned attack on Iran, as he suddenly called off the joint strike, with Israeli officials knowing about the decision from social media, according to Israeli media on Sunday.
“For hours, we were in real uncertainty,” a senior official told Channel 12.
“President Trump left us in the fog. Senior officers were updated about what was happening from Trump’s social media,” he added.
Trump said Saturday that he cancelled a planned military strike against Iran after Tehran and “other Middle Eastern countries” requested time to finalise the framework of a peace deal, saying Israel has joined the commitment.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump claimed that the sides agreed to the “perimeters” of a potential deal that would include the “immediate, complete, and total” reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.
“The feeling was, they left us behind,” the Israeli official said.Latest News, Breaking News & Top News Stories | The Express TribuneReutersRead More