Daijiworld Media Network - Doha

Doha, Aug 25: Qatar said on Tuesday that contacts with the United States and Iran are continuing as part of efforts to bring the two sides back to negotiations.

"Our officials are on the phone on a daily basis trying to workshop ideas, workshop ways of getting back to the negotiations," Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said at a weekly media briefing.

On the Strait of Hormuz, Al Ansari called for dialogue and diplomacy, saying the priority was "to go back to the freedom of navigation and to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz the way it was before the war."

Commenting on the latest US economic sanctions against Iran, Al Ansari described them as unilateral and reiterated Qatar's preference for a diplomatic settlement, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran would not allow the war to end on terms set by what he called the "aggressive" parties.

"We have definitely not been the party to start the war, but we will not let the war's end be based on the aggressive parties' conditions," Baghaei told a weekly press conference in Tehran.

He said Iran remained determined to defend its territory and would not "compromise with the aggressive parties" or surrender to their "excessive demands."

Baghaei also rejected US claims that the Strait of Hormuz was open and that millions of barrels of oil were passing through it each day, describing the assertions as part of "psychological and media warfare."

He criticised Washington's newly announced economic measures against Iran, saying Tehran would use all its "multilateral capacities" to counter the US sanctions, which he described as a blow to free trade and national sovereignty.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced a fresh wave of sanctions aimed at further isolating Iran and warned of what he called an "economic D-Day."