A top Omani diplomat was in Iran on Saturday for bilateral talks after weeks of volatility over the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for a fifth of all globally traded crude.

The meeting between Omani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was seen as a possible effort at diffusing a diplomatic standoff with the U.K., after Iran seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month.

Oman, seen as a neutral Gulf Arab country that has acted as a facilitator of talks between the U.S. and Iran in the past, sits across the strait from Iran, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The Omani diplomat’s visit to Tehran comes amid a spike in tensions between Washington and Tehran stemming from President Donald Trump’s decision last year to withdraw the U.S. from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and impose sweeping sanctions on the country.

Via The New York Times / AP