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Reuters

Middle East diplomacy appeared to falter heading into Monday with the postponement of a meeting between Iran and other Gulf powers, while attacks around the region’s two most important oil transit routes deepened concern over global energy supplies.
Oil prices jumped more than 3 per cent on Monday, following Houthi strikes on the world’s biggest exporter Saudi Arabia, a separate attack that forced the closure of its key 1,200km (745-mile) east-west pipeline on the weekend, and attacks on ships in the Gulf which compounded supply concerns.
Hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough in the near term faded when Oman’s foreign minister, Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, posted late Sunday that a regional meeting scheduled for Monday had been postponed “in the ‌interests of consensus”.
Iranian officials had said they would attend the gathering with Gulf Arab states to present an agreement with Oman on governing shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, which carried about a fifth of global oil supplies before the war.
Iran’s Fars news agency cited an Iranian foreign ministry official as saying that the Oman meeting was postponed at the request of some regional countries in a decision jointly made by Tehran and Muscat. The official said Iran would coordinate with Oman to determine a suitable date for holding the meeting.
The postponement came on the heels of Saudi Arabia’s decision to shut down, at least for now, its pipeline that has served as the main route for Middle East oil bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, the strait continued to pose risks for oil shipping, with the British maritime security agency UKMTO saying on Sunday that a vessel had been struck by a projectile as it moved through the Strait of Hormuz, causing a fire and forcing the crew to be evacuated.
Iran, for its ⁠part, said one person was killed and four crew wounded aboard an Iranian commercial vessel struck off its coast.
Commodity vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz fell to a single digit per day at the weekend, preliminary ship tracking data showed on Monday, well below a 10-day average of ‌14.
The figures exclude any vessels that might have crossed the strait with their Automatic Identification System transponders turned off to avoid detection.
Oil prices surged above US$100 last week for the first time since July. The politically sensitive retail price of diesel fuel in the United States rose on Sunday to another all-time high above US$6.20 a gallon (3.78 litres).
Traders and Saudi oil buyers told Reuters on Sunday that Riyadh has enough oil stored ‌at its Red Sea port of Yanbu to maintain exports for just five to seven days if the pipeline struck on Friday remains shut.

After that, as much as 4 per cent of global oil supply could be jeopardised, on top ⁠of the millions of barrels a day already lost to the ⁠disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has not given full details of the extent of damage to its pipeline or said how long it would remain offline. Sources who spoke to Reuters have given conflicting estimates for the time needed to fix it, ranging from days to weeks. Satellite images have shown huge columns ‌of smoke from locations along the pipeline.
The recent uptick in violence tied to the war that the United States and Israel launched six months ago follows a quiet August in which flows of Middle East oil had trickled back up.
In an interview with London-based pan-Arab news outlet Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said despite any agreement with Oman, Iran would ‌not ‌reopen the strait until the United States satisfies Tehran’s demands.
The US has so far failed to achieve the objectives President Donald Trump set out when he launched “Operation Epic Fury” in February: to end Iran’s nuclear programme, prevent it from being able to attack its neighbours and create ‌conditions for its people to topple their rulers.
On a weekend trip to Ireland that included attending the Irish Open golf tournament, Trump reiterated that he still expected the Iran war to end this year, possibly just after US midterm elections in November, and then the price of fuel would “drop ⁠like a rock”.

In Saudi Arabia, state media released video of damage to homes and a mosque from the latest purported cross-border attack by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Jazan province in the south. The Houthis claimed separately to have struck a Saudi military base ⁠in a neighbouring province following their capture of Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears” strait that controls the mouth of the Red Sea.
The Houthi advance along the Red Sea coast is part of the biggest eruption of fighting in Yemen for years.
Their advance and their attacks on Saudi Arabia pose a new dilemma for Washington, which wants to support its Saudi allies and protect shipping but is wary of joining war on another front. The Houthi attacks have also ‌left Gulf states with a difficult choice: accept growing economic pain or ‌engage with Iran.
The United States bombed the Houthis for two months in 2025, but Trump halted that campaign after announcing the group had lifted a threat to attack Red Sea shipping.
Three sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, phoned Trump on Thursday asking for military aid to fight the Houthis, but was offered only intelligence support for now.
Trump acknowledged on Saturday that he had spoken to the crown prince, and said the Houthis had also phoned the US administration, asking Washington to keep out of the Yemen war.


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Houthis engaged in fighting near the western Yemen port city of Mokha, which they captured last week. Photo: Houthi Military Media via EPA

Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman. Photo: Reuters

Satellite images show the Saudi Arabia East-West pipeline on September 8 (top) and after sustaining damage on September 11 (bottom). Photo: Planet Labs PBC via Reuters

Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis reached the strategic island on September 11. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via Reuters

Houthi fighters at a seized camp during their offensive in western Yemen.  Photo: Houthi Military Media via EPA

A Houthi fighter at the entrance to a seized camp. Photo: Houthi Military Media via EPA

Houthi fighters inspecting damaged pick-up trucks. Photo: Houthi Military Media via EPA

Houthi fighters inspecting ammunition boxes at a seized camp.  Photo: Houthi Military Media via EPA

Houthis hit Saudi base amid renewed fighting with Yemen government forces

Houthis brandish their weapons as they rally in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa in March. Photo: TNS

US President Donald Trump (right) and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman hold hands during a meeting in the Oval Office in November 2025. Photo: Reuters

A Houthi trooper mans a machine gun on a pickup truck while on patrol in Sanaa, Yemen, on Saturday. Photo: EPA

Displaced Yemenis rest at a temporary shelter in the Dar Saad district of Aden, Yemen, on Saturday. Photo: AP

US military carries out new strikes on Iranian targets as hostilities flare

A warplane prepares for flight operations aboard a US aircraft carrier on the day US Central Command carried out air strikes against Iranian military targets. Photo: CENTCOM via Reuters

Rubble lies around damaged houses following a reported attack near a wedding gathering in Kuhistik, Sirik, Iran. Photo: Iranian Red Crescent Society via Reuters

Smoke in the sky in northern Bahrain following Iranian drone and missile attacks. Photo: UGC via AFP

The moment before a US strike on an Iranian military target, taken from video obtained from social media on September 1. Photo: CENTCOM via Reuters

Iran, UAE leaders discuss de-escalation as oil supply worries spike

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (right) with Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi on the sidelines of the Brics summit in New Delhi. Photo: X/Iran_in_India

US starts returning staff to some Middle East missions after Iran war evacuations

The US embassy in the Green Zone of Baghdad, Iraq. Photo: EPA

A fire burns on the grounds of the US embassy in Baghdad on March 17 following a drone and rocket attack. Photo: AFP

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New attacks in Hormuz and Saudi Arabia as planned talks between Tehran and its neighbours are put off


New attacks in Hormuz and Saudi Arabia as planned talks between Tehran and its neighbours are put off.


Middle East diplomacy stalls as war spreads, Hormuz talks postponed

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}New attacks in Hormuz and Saudi Arabia as planned talks between Tehran and its neighbours are put off

New attacks in Hormuz and Saudi Arabia as planned talks between Tehran and its neighbours are put off