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.
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