Qatar, Russia and Pakistan trying to mediate between US and Iran, reports The Guardian; A source close to Iran's chief negotiator Ghalibaf says reports about an imminent US-Iran deal are incorrect.

• Iran has now assumed a state of war as certainty and has prepared for it.

US-Iran negotiation episodes have a well-established rhythm: mediation headlines from Gulf intermediaries alternate with denials from Tehran, and the gap between the two is usually where the negotiating leverage sits. Qatar and Oman have been the recurring back-channels in past rounds of this kind, typically hosting indirect talks rather than brokering anything directly, so their involvement signals process rather than proximity to a deal. A denial sourced close to the Iranian negotiating side carries more weight than anonymous optimism elsewhere, and episodes of this sort have tended to see the crude risk premium added on mediation hopes partially retraced on the denial, with the residual premium governed by the military positioning rather than the diplomatic language. The transmission channel to watch is the physical one: freight rates, war-risk insurance in the Gulf, and spreads between regional grades rather than the flat price alone. Tehran framing its posture in terms of war preparation is the harder signal in the package, since in prior cycles such language has either preceded escalation or been used to strengthen the hand at the table, and the two are only distinguishable in hindsight. The tells going forward are whether either capital confirms talks are actually occurring, any movement in force posture or shipping advisories in the Strait area, and whether the intermediaries themselves put their names to the effort.