Qatar: U.S.-Iran deal depends on political will, Gaza remains at heart of crisis

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari told CNN that Doha’s efforts are focused on putting the political and technical elements in place for a U.S.-Iran deal.Doha’s immediate priority is to create the conditions for negotiations towards a sustainable solution to the U.S.-Iran conflict, rather than freeze the fighting and risk another escalation, Qatar’s official spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Majed Al-Ansari, said in an interview with CNN on Monday.Speaking to CNN’s Becky Anderson about the state of U.S.-Iran negotiations, Al-Ansari said Qatar was focused on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, easing economic pressure across the region, including on Iran, and preventing further military escalation.“We do not want to go from a high-intensity conflict to a low-intensity conflict. We don’t want to freeze this conflict and be back here a couple of months later,” Al-Ansari said.Al-Ansari said the wider regional crisis remained closely tied to Gaza, which he described as “the nucleus of this issue”.“And we need to go back to that, starting with the recent developments in the state of Hormuz and ending with finding a solution to the Palestinian issue,” Al-Ansari added.He explained that the Palestinian issue could not be treated as an afterthought and needed to be addressed through regional efforts involving international partners."We don't want to freeze this conflict and be back here a couple of months later" the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson @majedalansari tells me as we discuss the US-Iran conflict, its impact on the region and what the key mediator believes is needed to bring the war to an end: pic.twitter.com/g2whO4p7Pn— Becky Anderson (@BeckyCNN) September 7, 2026 Asked how realistic it was to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and whether Tehran could escalate further, Al-Ansari said Qatar was focused on finding solutions rather than dwelling on the current situation.“We cannot afford to just sit around and weep over spilled milk when it comes to this crisis. This is why we are working day and night to come up with any innovative solution that would bring us to that point,” he added.Al-Ansari identified two main obstacles to reaching a resolution: political will and technical challenges, saying Qatar had already put forward ideas on the technical side.“I think on the technical front we have put forth a lot of good ideas. Some of them were in the MOU. We are producing more ideas over there,” he said.Al-Ansari said the remaining challenge was political will.Al-Ansari also addressed the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran, saying they had affected the country’s economy and people but had not produced the expected results.“Sanctions have been a staple of diplomacy in this region for a really long time. It hasn’t yielded the results that have been expected. Of course they have an effect. Of course they affect the economy. They affect the people, and unilateral sanctions have a lot of effect on the banking sector and on the needs of the state itself to survive,” he explained.However, Al-Ansari said the dispute could ultimately only be resolved through negotiations, adding that reaching an agreement sooner would reduce the impact of the crisis on the international economy and people across the region.“The sooner we get to that agreement, the less suffering that will be had on the international economy but also on the peoples of this region,” Al-Ansari stressed.Al-Ansari warned against allowing the weaponisation of waterways to become “the new normal” in war.“First of all, the world cannot afford to normalise the idea of a strait being used, a waterway being used and weaponised in this way in this kind of conflict. This could be replicated in other places, having even more damaging consequences,” he said.Al-Ansari said disruption to a single waterway was already having wider economic consequences, including rising inflation and growing concerns over energy and food security.He called for accountability and international law to prevail, warning against allowing the weaponisation of waterways to become normalised.“For those who are thinking that this can be normalised, I say to them very clearly: this will come to your door very soon.”