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% on Monday, following Houthi strikes on the world’s biggest exporter Saudi Arabia forced the closure of its key 1 200 km east-west pipeline on the weekend, and Iranian attacks on ships in the Gulf 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 that 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
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