US President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, although China has given no signal that it will get involved, Reuters reports.
Returning from Beijing on Friday after two days of talks with Xi, Trump said he was considering lifting US sanctions on Chinese oil companies that buy Iranian oil. China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil.
"I'm not asking for any favors, because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return," Trump said, responding to a question from reporters on Air Force One about whether Xi had made a firm commitment to pressuring the Iranians to reopen the strait.
Xi did not comment on his talks with Trump on Iran, although China's Foreign Ministry criticized the war, calling it a conflict "that should never have happened and has no reason to continue."
"We want the straits to be open"
Iran has effectively closed the strait, which carried a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the US and Israeli attack on February 28. The disruption to shipping has caused the largest oil supply crisis in history, sending oil prices soaring.
Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security committee, said on Saturday that Tehran had prepared a mechanism to manage traffic through the strait along a specific route, which would be unveiled soon.
Azizi said that only commercial ships and parties cooperating with Iran would benefit from this, and that fees would be charged for specialized services provided under the mechanism.
Thousands of Iranians have been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes. Thousands more have been killed in Lebanon in fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, although Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to extend a ceasefire for 45 days, bringing some relief to the conflict in the country.
The US paused its attacks last month but began a blockade of ports. By Saturday, 78 commercial ships had been diverted and four disabled to ensure compliance with the blockade, the US military said, according to Reuters.
Tehran, which has launched attacks on Israel, US bases and Gulf states since the start of the war, has said it will not unblock the strait until the US ends the blockade. Trump has threatened to continue attacks if Iran does not agree to a deal.
"We don't want them to have nuclear weapons, we want the straits to be open," Trump said in Beijing, alongside Xi.
Iran, which has long denied it intends to build nuclear weapons, refuses to end nuclear research or give up its hidden stockpiles of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had received messages from the US indicating that Washington was ready to resume talks.
Pakistan is mediating between Washington and Tehran. The Iranian news agency Nournews reported that Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni held "detailed" talks with his visiting Pakistani counterpart about Iran-Pakistan relations and prospects for resuming peace talks, but did not provide details.
Trump is losing patience
Trump, who said in an interview with Fox News' "Hannity" on Thursday that he was losing patience with Iran, said Tehran "should make a deal."
Oil prices LCOc1 rose about 3 percent on Friday, to around $109 a barrel, on concerns about the lack of progress in resolving the conflict.
Negotiations to end the war, which have become a burden for Trump ahead of the US congressional elections in November, have been suspended since last week, when Iran and the US rejected the other side's latest proposals.
Araghchi said on Friday that Iran would welcome China's contribution, adding that Tehran was trying to give diplomacy a chance but did not trust the United States, which had interrupted previous rounds of talks by launching airstrikes.
When the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February, they said one of the goals was to weaken the authorities so that the Iranians could overthrow the government.
During the war, there were few signs of organized dissent in Iran, and human rights organizations report that the government cracked down harshly on opponents.
Iran's judiciary said on Saturday that 39 people have been executed since the start of the war for collaborating with Israeli or American spy agencies, or participating in "terror" or armed unrest, the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported.
It is reported that 36 "mid-level" dissidents have been sentenced to long prison terms.
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