Saudi state television reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met on Monday with the Commander of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, and discussed with him the latest regional developments, in light of the escalation of attacks launched by the Yemeni Ansar Allah Houthi group on the Kingdom.
This meeting comes days after three informed sources told Reuters that the Crown Prince requested military assistance from US President Donald Trump to confront the Houthis.
The American website Axios had quoted American officials as saying that, on Thursday, the Saudi Crown Prince made two phone calls to US President Donald Trump and urged him to launch strikes against the Houthis.
The report stated that Trump rejected the request, and American officials stated that the administration does not intend to take direct military action against the Houthis at the present time.
While Reuters sources added that Trump did not agree to direct US strikes on the Houthis, but Washington informed Riyadh that it would provide support in the areas of exchanging intelligence information and identifying targets.
This comes in conjunction with a statement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry that Saudi Arabia requested the postponement of a meeting between Tehran and the Gulf states that was scheduled to be held in the Sultanate of Oman on Monday, and the highest Iranian nuclear official was also prevented from attending a meeting in Vienna under “American pressure.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghaei said that “relying on the Yemeni issue as a reason to postpone the meeting” regarding navigation routes in the Strait of Hormuz is a “false excuse,” denying any Iranian involvement in the Yemeni issue.
Baghaei added: "Iran does not interfere in Yemeni affairs," noting that the Houthis are "completely independent parties that make their decisions based on their own interests."
Muhammad Ali Bey, an official in the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Sunday evening that the meeting was postponed “at the request of some countries in the region” and a joint decision between Iran and Oman, indicating coordination with Muscat regarding a new date.
The Iranian "Tasnim" agency blamed "external parties", claiming that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were influenced by American and Israeli pressure.
At the same time, Iran announced on Monday that it had summoned the Austrian Chargé d'Affaires after the European country refused to allow the head of the Iranian nuclear program to participate in a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghaei said: “The Austrian government’s refusal to grant visas to the delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a completely unjustified decision.”
He added: "It is clear to us that this incident occurred under American pressure, but that does not absolve the Austrian government of responsibility."
An American report stated that the highest Iranian nuclear official was prevented from attending the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, following pressure exerted by the Trump administration, according to the American Bloomberg Agency.
Eslami, Iran's vice president for nuclear affairs, was scheduled to address the UN nuclear energy agency on Monday, a US official told Bloomberg.
The Iranian Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday that the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization had left Tehran to attend the conference.
An American official, who requested anonymity, told the American agency that the refusal to grant Eslami an exemption from sanctions to allow him to enter Austria came in response to American demands, despite the possibility that another Iranian representative with a lower job level might replace him.
The agency reported that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright intends to use this forum to issue a warning to Tehran, stressing that the US position is decisive and unequivocal, which is that “Iran should never develop or obtain a nuclear weapon.”
On the other hand, Baghaei stated on Monday that reports about activities at the Jabal Ax site are baseless, after US President Donald Trump repeated his threat to target it, saying that the United States is monitoring activities there.
Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which Iran established to manage transit requests in the Strait of Hormuz, on Monday published an updated list of 77 vessels that "violate Iranian protocols for the Strait of Hormuz."
The Authority stated that the ships included in the list will face restrictions on their transit in the future, including the imposition of fines, detention, or confiscation, warning against including any ships that cooperate with those violating ships on the same list.
The authority said in a post on the “X” platform: “We warn insurance companies, protection and compensation clubs, and marine classification bodies against providing services to these ships to avoid the consequences of dealing with them.”
It is noteworthy that protection and indemnity clubs are mutual insurance societies that provide shipowners and charterers with coverage for marine liabilities towards third parties.
Preliminary ship tracking data on Monday showed a decline in the number of ships transporting goods transiting the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend to less than 10 ships per day, a level well below the 10-day average of 14 ships.
These numbers do not include ships that may have crossed the strait with their automatic identification system transmitters turned off to avoid detection.
On the economic front, oil prices rose sharply as a result of the closure of a major pipeline in Saudi Arabia, with the price of Brent crude crossing $107 per barrel, with hopes for diplomatic progress in the region fading.
Saudi Arabia kept the main East-West pipeline, which extends 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from east to west, closed throughout the weekend, after it was damaged in drone attacks on Friday.
Sources who spoke to Reuters gave varying estimates. One of them indicated that repairing the damage may take between five to six weeks, while another source stated the possibility of repairing it sooner and partially resuming pumping in conjunction with the continuation of repair work.
