A top Iranian official reiterated the country’s determination to maintain control over maritime traffic moving through the Strait of Hormuz, raising the stakes ahead of fresh negotiations with the U.S. on ending their war for good.

In remarks to Iranian state television, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Iran wants to work out an agreement with Oman, which controls the other side of the vital waterway, to oversee ships passing through Hormuz. But Iran will move forward with its own plans to control traffic “if for any reason Oman is not interested in doing so,” he said.

“We have warned the Omanis that other countries have no right to interfere in this matter,” Gharibabadi said. He said his country will designate any temporary transit routes in the strait.

The remarks were fresh evidence that Iran has no intention of returning to the status quo from before the U.S. and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, in which ships passed freely through the strait. An interim peace agreement signed earlier this month said Iran wouldn’t charge tolls for 60 days but left open the possibility of ships being forced to pay some sort of fee after that.

That stance will add to the pressure around the next round of talks, which the U.S. has said are set to take place in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are set to attend, according to the White House. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week in Bahrain that any tolls or fees would be unacceptable.

Iran has not confirmed the details of a fresh round of negotiations to permanently end the four-month war. Gharibabadi said earlier that “the Americans are traveling to Doha, but we have no plans to meet with them” while at the same time conceding that delegates would be there to follow up on implementation of the interim agreement through Qatari mediators.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, President Donald Trump declined to say whether he thought the new talks would lead to a breakthrough after a spate of attacks in recent days jeopardized the ceasefire between the two countries. He made clear his focus remains on keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands.

“The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not,” Trump said. “We’re going to find out, but we’re winning militarily. It’s almost won militarily, I would say, and it’s really very simple. It’s the denuclearization of Iran. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, and they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”

The U.S., Europe and Gulf Arab nations are increasingly concerned about charges being imposed for the use of Hormuz, which would likely add to energy costs and risk creating a precedent for other countries. Even so, Iran’s ability to dictate to shippers may be limited as long as the southern Omani route remains open to traffic.

Oman has pushed back against that idea of charging fees. Sultan Haitham bin Tariq met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris earlier Monday and the two sides reaffirmed their commitment to freedom of navigation “without conditions or restrictions, including the right of transit passage in accordance with the law of the sea.”

For the time being, oil tankers have continued to navigate the strait despite the attacks. A trio of tankers was heading toward the strait inbound late on Monday while two successfully sailed out of the waterway earlier in the day, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Two more oil supertankers, including one that turned back last week, appeared to be making another move toward departing the Persian Gulf.

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(With assistance from Jeff Mason.)

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