Qatar says "new ideas" are being discussed to end the US-Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as Doha intensifies diplomacy with China and other regional and international partners.
The details have not been made public, and Qatar has not announced a formal new initiative.
But its latest diplomatic push comes as several proposals are already circulating over how to restore shipping through Hormuz without waiting for a comprehensive settlement to the wider US-Iran conflict.
Qatar's position is clear - the strait should be reopened immediately and without conditions, and should not be used as leverage in negotiations.
"It’s not acceptable at all to have this state of no war and no peace," Ibrahim Al Hashmi, director of the media department at Qatar's Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday.
"Qatar is working hard with its partners, including China. Diplomatic efforts are being exerted and new ideas are being discussed," he added.
Al Hashmi said the most important requirement was "political will" from both Iran and the United States, while stressing that reopening Hormuz was a top priority for Qatar and other countries in the region.
Why is Qatar looking for a new approach?
The latest push follows the failure of an earlier agreement to produce a lasting settlement.
Washington and Tehran reached a memorandum of understanding in June with Qatari and Pakistani mediation, providing for a halt in military operations and arrangements to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The agreement was meant to create space for further negotiations, including over Iran's nuclear programme and US sanctions, but implementation stalled and hostilities resumed.
The Hormuz dispute has since become one of the central obstacles to reviving negotiations.
Qatar has increasingly argued that the crisis cannot be allowed to settle into an indefinite state between war and peace, particularly because disruption to the strait has consequences far beyond Iran and the US.
Shipping through Hormuz has again slowed sharply amid the latest escalation, with only seven commodity vessels recorded passing through on Monday, according to Kpler data cited by Reuters.
Could Hormuz be dealt with separately?
One possibility emerging from the wider diplomatic activity is to find an interim solution for Hormuz before attempting to solve every dispute between Washington and Tehran.
Iran and Oman have been negotiating a temporary safe shipping route through the strait.
Iranian officials said this week that those talks had made "significant progress", with Tehran and Muscat working towards a temporary transit route while negotiations continue over a longer-term arrangement.
An earlier proposal envisaged inbound traffic passing through Iranian waters and outbound traffic using both Iranian and Omani territorial waters, followed by 30 to 60 days of talks on a more permanent route.
That plan is separate from Qatar's efforts, but it illustrates the type of narrower arrangement that could help break the deadlock.
Doha has previously argued that reaching an agreement on Hormuz could make it easier to restart wider US-Iran negotiations.
Where does China fit in?
China has now emerged more clearly in Qatar's diplomatic push.
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Tuesday, with Hormuz, regional security and possible solutions to the closure of the strait among the issues discussed.
Beijing has an obvious interest in restoring stable shipping through the Gulf because of its heavy reliance on energy imports from the region.
Its involvement also broadens the mediation effort beyond the countries that negotiated the June agreement.
Doha appears to be trying to assemble a wider diplomatic effort capable of addressing both the immediate shipping crisis and the larger political confrontation.
What might Qatar's "new ideas" involve?
Qatar has not disclosed them, so anything beyond its public statements remains interpretation.
But Ibrahim Freihat, professor of international conflict at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has argued that an innovative approach could involve separating the different disputes instead of trying to resolve them through one comprehensive agreement.
"First, separating the issues instead of having all the files intertwined and interconnected. That makes a solution more difficult,” Freihat told Al Jazeera.
He argued that Hormuz itself could be treated as a separate negotiating track.
“Even the Hormuz issue itself could be addressed through a single track without requiring a comprehensive solution to the entire Hormuz question," he said.
Freihat also suggested replacing intermittent negotiating rounds with more permanent dialogue.
"Instead of negotiations taking place in separate rounds, they should become permanent negotiations,” he said. “In conflict terminology, they should become dialogue," he added.
He said a third element would be moving beyond purely bilateral US-Iran talks and giving Gulf countries a greater role in shaping a wider regional security arrangement.
Is there a new Qatari initiative?
Not formally, at least not yet. What Qatar has confirmed is that it is discussing new ideas with its partners, including China, and wants an unconditional reopening of Hormuz while wider diplomatic efforts continue.
The emerging approach therefore appears less like a single dramatic peace plan and more like an effort to break the crisis into manageable parts - reopen shipping, prevent further escalation and create enough political space for US-Iran negotiations to resume.