By Parisa Hafezi, Jana Choukeir and Eman Abouhassira
DUBAI, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The prime minister of U.S. ally Qatar visited Tehran on Thursday in a bid to revive diplomacy as the U.S. and Iran traded recriminations over Washington's latest sanctions drive, described by one Iranian official as "all-out economic war".
A Gulf neighbour of Iran, Qatar has served as a back-channel negotiator for the warring parties and played a direct role in securing a June ceasefire that briefly led to a cessation of hostilities.
The visit comes as the war nears its sixth month with fighting largely paused but no diplomatic breakthrough in sight. Both sides are at odds over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil supplies that Tehran has used as leverage.
The White House said there were currently no negotiations happening between the United States and Iran as Tehran had not yet "come to the table in a meaningful way". Iran has repeatedly said it has never left the negotiating table.
UNBLOCKING HORMUZ
Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is also his country's foreign minister, held talks in Tehran with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, according to Iran's foreign ministry channel on Telegram.
The two discussed a proposed phased framework that includes establishing a temporary joint Iranian-Omani shipping corridor through the strait and carrying out a joint project to clear mines from the waterway, Qatar's foreign ministry said.
A memorandum of understanding reached between the U.S. and Iran in June to end the conflict broke down in part because of differences over the strait between Iran and Oman, where one-fifth of the world's oil supplies passed before the war began on February 28.
Tehran has said the strait will remain shut unless the U.S. meets Iranian conditions agreed under the June interim ceasefire. Those conditions include an end to the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, compensation and removal of sanctions.
The two officials also reviewed the latest developments in the region and efforts to de-escalate tensions and create conditions for dialogue, the Qatari ministry said.
'NO NEGOTIATIONS HAPPENING'
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that President Donald Trump "continues to retain all options on the table" with regard to Iran.
"We've had Operation Epic Fury to destroy their military. Now we have Operation Economic Outcast to destroy their economy," Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News.
"No negotiations are happening right now, and this will continue until the president feels that maybe they come to the table in a meaningful way," she said. "We have not seen that yet."
While direct military strikes on Iran have halted, Washington this week piled on the economic pressure by announcing plans to cut Iran off from its trading partners with increased sanctions.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf called on Thursday for national unity in the face of what he described as "all-out economic war", warning that internal division was "exactly what the enemy wants".
Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament's national security committee, said the sanctions were an "inhumane and hostile act" which nonetheless had lost their effectiveness.
Tehran has lived under various forms of U.S. sanctions since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
OMAN-IRAN HORMUZ DEAL
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that Iran and Oman had agreed on how to share the Strait of Hormuz and its revenues, but a senior Iranian source later said the two countries were still working on the details of an agreement.
The Strait of Hormuz was open to free navigation before the war, but Iran has since clung to its control of the waterway as leverage and a revenue source, seeking to charge ships a commission, which the U.S. has opposed.
Despite an aerial bombardment earlier in the war that severely diminished Iran's conventional forces, Tehran has maintained enough missile and drone capability to attack Gulf neighbours that house U.S. military bases and disrupt oil tankers in the strait.
The International Maritime Organization has reported 70 incidents in the Strait of Hormuz since February 28 that have killed 19 seafarers.
Thousands of others have died, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran with the stated goals of denying Iran a nuclear weapon, helping Iranians topple their government, and destroying Tehran's missile programme.
(Additional reporting by Yomna Ehab and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Susan Heavey in Washington and Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Writing by Daniel Trotta, Stephen Coates, Conor Humphries and Sharon Singleton; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani, Clarence Fernandez and Gareth Jones)
