Trump to meet Iran war mediator Qatar, no imminent deal seen to end the war

By Yomna Ehab and Alexander Cornwell

CAIRO/ABU DHABI, Nov 9 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump will meet the prime minister of key mediator Qatar on Monday as efforts to end the Iran war ramp up following last week's midterm elections, though senior US and Gulf officials cast doubt on the chances of an imminent deal.

More than eight months into the conflict he launched alongside Israel on February 28, Trump has played down the likelihood of major warfare restarting soon but remains unwilling to accept an existing Iranian truce plan.

Mutual attacks continue, with the US striking Iran's Qeshm island overnight, according to Iranian state media, and Iran attacking tankers in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz this month while its Yemeni Houthi allies have hit Saudi Arabia.

DIPLOMATIC MOVES

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who is both prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, will meet Trump and Vice President JD Vance in Washington later on Monday after having visited Tehran last week.

Iran's proposal to end the war involves an end to the US blockade of its ports, the lifting of some sanctions and a halt to bombing in return for Tehran stopping its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, with talks on its nuclear programme and other sanctions to follow.

The US has repeatedly rejected that plan, which Iran has said could be condensed to a two-day timeframe, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing Tehran's conditions on Sunday as "outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic".

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei defended the plan on Monday as the most reasonable offer on the table.

Senior US Republicans including Vance have blamed their party's losses in last week's elections on the Iran war, but despite growing domestic political pressure to end the conflict, Rubio said he did not believe a diplomatic breakthrough was imminent.

A senior United Arab Emirates official, Anwar Gargash, echoed that view on Monday, saying a comprehensive political settlement between the US and Iran appeared difficult.

"We should... prepare for a long period of uncertainty in which neither a decisive resolution nor stable regional order can be taken for granted," he said.

Vance, who led the negotiations for a short-lived truce in June, will also meet Al-Thani, whose country has been a prime mediator since early in the war, conveying messages between the sides and proposing ways to bridge their differences.

Anxiety over the war has pervaded the region for months and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday he had told Trump that Ankara did not want to see a new escalation.

"We emphasise at every opportunity that it is possible to resolve these issues through dialogue and diplomacy. Unfortunately, we see a negative shift once again. We are doing our utmost to prevent this," Erdogan told reporters.

MILITARY ACTION

Sunday night's strikes on Qeshm island did not impact vital infrastructure or services, a provincial official told Iran's semi-official Fars news agency on Monday. The US has not commented on the Iranian media reports.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters that US strikes were targeting Iranian radar systems serving both air defence and ship navigation, as well as bases for missile launchers and mine-laying systems.

Attacks on tankers in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz ramped up sharply in October and have continued at the highest rate since the start of the war, figures from international maritime agencies showed last week.

Iran, which typically does not acknowledge striking vessels that report being hit by projectiles, said on Sunday a tanker had hit a mine east of the Strait of Hormuz.

A state television reporter said on Monday that 11 tankers had been "disabled" over the past 10 days.

The war has triggered a global energy shortage, prompted Iranian strikes on Gulf Arab countries, spilled over into a major Israeli offensive in Lebanon during the spring and summer and reignited Yemen's long-frozen civil war.

On Sunday Yemen's Iran-allied Houthi group said it had struck an office building of Saudi state oil company Aramco in Riyadh. The attack blew out windows across several floors of a building in the city's financial district. The Energy Ministry acknowledged damage from an attempted attack on the building without assigning responsibility.

(Reporting by Yomna Ehab in Cairo and Alexander Cornwell in Abu Dhabi; Writing by Angus McDowallEditing by Gareth Jones)