Trump says Iran meeting to take place in Qatar

TEHRAN: US President Donald Trump said Iran has requested a meeting that will be held in Qatar on Tuesday, despite Tehran earlier denying that any technical talks on the deal aimed at ending the Middle East war were planned.

The announcement came after Iran held its first talks with Oman on managing the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Iran deal was signed and as Washington and Tehran agreed to halt their attacks, which had strained the agreement.

The exchanges of fire have underscored the fragility of the Pakistan-brokered agreement to stop the war, which sowed havoc across the Middle East and snarled the flow of oil and gas shipments through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday, without specifying the participants.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt later told Fox News that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner “will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week”.

A diplomat with knowledge of the talks confirmed to AFP that officials from the US and Iran were due to meet in the Qatari capital to discuss the deal signed earlier this month.

“Technical teams working on the implementation of the MoU are scheduled to meet in Doha in the coming days,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat added that “communications channels created to de-escalate any incidents are in place” after the strikes.

Qatar has played a key role alongside Pakistan in mediating a conclusion to the conflict, with the most recent discussions between Tehran and Washington taking place on June 21 with all four countries in attendance.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi, however, denied reports that technical talks were “planned for this week”, state TV reported.

Nevertheless, a US official also told AFP that the negotiations would continue despite the recent strikes.

“Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” the official said in an email.

Hormuz talks

Iran’s exercise of control over the strait has sparked repeated flare-ups, the latest of which came early on Sunday when US Central Command said it had attacked 10 Iranian military targets over “continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping”.

Iran said it retaliated with strikes against US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The blockade remains a key sticking point in the US negotiations.

Iran and Oman border the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed prior to the conflict, and Iran said on Monday they held their first talks since the deal was struck.

“During a trip to Muscat, the first meeting of the Joint Hormuz Committee was held,” said Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi on X. “While reviewing the current issues related to the strait, we exchanged views on the future management.”

The strait comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, but under customary international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls.

Iran warned on Sunday that any attempt by ships to bypass its preferred route through Hormuz would “increase tensions” in the Middle East.

Iran insists ships transiting the strait pass through a corridor near its own shores instead of the opposite side of the waterway, hugging the Omani coast.

Traffic slowed over the weekend after a vessel was struck while transiting the waterway on Saturday, with 29 commodity vessels crossing on Saturday and 12 transiting on Sunday, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler.

Ships continued for several hours to use a southern corridor through Omani waters before traffic appeared to slow, Kpler-owned website MarineTraffic reported.

‘Hegemonic dreams’

The published text of the memorandum of understanding says Iran will define the future administration of the strait in dialogue with Oman and the other Gulf States but “in line” with international law.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they were taking measures to control traffic in the strait and that vessels violating those measures would be dealt with more firmly than before.

Mohammad Mokhber, adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, wrote on X that as long as Iran managed the strait, Washington’s “hegemonic dreams in the region will not be realised”.

Experts said there would likely be more Hormuz incidents.

For Iran, “a drawn-out negotiation accompanied by controlled pressure in the strait can work to its advantage”, said HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank.