Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei told Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei on Tuesday that the country’s rights and interests must be guaranteed to end the war and exit a state of “neither war nor peace,” according to his office and SNSC-affiliated Nour News. The Tuesday meeting also covered national security, management of the Strait of Hormuz and relations with neighboring countries, while Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said he met Khamenei the same day and described him as being in “full health.”
Word of the discussions lifted US equity futures—with S&P 500 contracts up 0.40% and Nasdaq futures up 0.60%—while Gulf stock markets rose and oil prices retreated on hopes that regional diplomacy could ease supply disruptions. Brent crude futures slipped 0.57% to $115.15 a barrel after topping $117 on Monday, and US West Texas Intermediate fell 0.43% to $101.32.
Khamenei’s remarks came a day after Rezaei and President Masoud Pezeshkian hosted Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin in Tehran for the first high-level talks between Iran and the three Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signatories. The four countries agreed to continue dialogue on regional security without addressing Tehran’s nuclear program, while Israel Hayom reported that Prince Khalid offered $1 billion—roughly two days of Saudi Red Sea crude exports from Yanbu—for an Iran-brokered Houthi ceasefire as the group demands Riyadh first lift its air blockade on Yemen.