Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan and Oman submitted a ten-day ceasefire proposal to Washington and Tehran, its core term the resumption of Strait of Hormuz navigation alongside talks on a longer agreement1. The four are the region's standing intermediaries, and the text puts a fixed clock on a war that has run without one.
The proposal reaches an administration holding out for a longer pause than ten days, which has urged Israel to keep the diplomatic window open. Qatar files it from the same seat where it lodged a dated compensation claim against Iran at the UN Security Council on 21 July, mediating and litigating at once. The core term reaches for the one lever that moves everything else: reopening Hormuz would unwind the blockade and the price spike together, which is why it sits at the centre of the text rather than the nuclear file or the strikes.
