Talks continuing between the US and Iran through intermediaries are positive and constructive, reports Sky News Arabia citing US media

Indirect US-Iran contacts of this kind have a long history of generating optimistic intermediary readouts that outpace the underlying negotiation, and the pattern here fits the established template: both sides brief positively through regional media while the hard sequencing questions, in this case the order of nuclear steps versus sanctions or security commitments, remain unresolved. The distinction that has mattered in past episodes is between atmospherics and verification: crude has historically sold off on headline progress and retraced when talks stall, with the durable repricing coming only when shipping, insurance, and export flows actually change rather than when rhetoric improves. The reference to attacks on commercial vessels is the more consequential strand, since the freight and insurance channel, war risk premia in the Gulf, has historically been the fastest transmission route into WTI and product cracks, independent of any diplomatic track. The 'no agreement without the nuclear file' framing is standard Iranian positioning and signals conditionality rather than breakthrough. Worth noting is the sourcing chain, regional media citing US media, which in past cycles has proven a soft signal prone to walk-back from either capital. The tells ahead are whether named officials in Washington or Tehran confirm the characterisation and whether tanker traffic or insurance rates in the region shift.