UAE official says US and Iran have a ’50-50′ chance of reaching agreement to free up Hormuz

The US and Iran have just a “50-50” chance of reaching an agreement that would free up the Strait of Hormuz, a senior UAE official says, urging Tehran not to overplay its hand in the stop-start negotiations during the Middle East war’s fragile ceasefire.

Iranian officials “have missed a lot of chances over the years because there’s a tendency to overestimate their cards,” UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash tells the GLOBSEC Forum in Prague. “I hope they don’t do that this time.”

He also says the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries a fifth of global oil production, must go back to normal, and cautions against an inconclusive ceasefire.

“Negotiations just to reach a ceasefire and sow the seeds for further conflict in the future is not what we’re seeking,” Garagash says. “And I think that the Strait of Hormuz clearly has to go back to the status quo and this should be an international waterway.”

With US negotiators focusing on Iran’s potential development of an atomic weapon, Gargash says: “The Iranian nuclear program was our second or third worry, now it’s our first worry.”

“We see that Iran is capable of using any weapon that it has in its hands, which is what we learned,” he adds.

The oil-rich UAE, which hosts US military facilities, was targeted by about 3,300 drones and missiles during 40 days of war from February 28 onwards, with only around four percent getting through, according to Gargash.