Donald Trump has claimed that Iran has agreed to hold talks in Doha after the US and Iran traded fire in the strait of Hormuz this weekend, threatening the collapse of a ceasefire meant to keep the strait open and pave the way for peace talks.
In a terse post on Truth Social, the US president claimed the meetings would take place in the Qatari capital, as US media reported that the two sides had agreed to halt strikes following tit-for-tat attacks that once again cut off shipping through the crucial waterway.
“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA! President DJT,” Trump wrote in all capital letters.
The announcement came after Iran on Saturday targeted a cargo ship in the strait in a drone attack, leading US Central Command (Centcom) to launch retaliatory strikes against Iranian “military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities”.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) then said on Sunday it had launched a joint missile and drone operation targeting eight US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain.
With the deal faltering, the White House stepped in to seek an off-ramp from the resuming hostilities, even as the specifics of who will hold control over the strait and whether Iran can charge fees for passage in the future remains unclear.
Agence France-Presse reported that commercial ships had virtually ceased using the Omani southern corridor through the strait after civilian ships were struck on Thursday and then again on Saturday. Iran has warned ships transiting through the waterway that they must receive approval from Tehran. Ships have continued travelling through the Iranian-approved northern corridor.
The Omani foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said on Monday that Oman was in discussions with Iran on charging service fees for transiting the strait, including safety measures and navigation assistance, but would not explicitly charge tolls for using the waterway.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News that a US delegation to Doha would include Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iranian negotiators are expected to meet them there.
Axios, a US website, reported that the talks would also include “technical teams” meant to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme, indicating that pre-planned negotiations may now focus on how to prevent a return to open conflict between the US and Iran.
The US vice-president, JD Vance, last week credited new high-level contacts with the Iranian government with preventing a new outbreak of violence in the region. A US official told Axios that the US had “decided to stop all the kinetic activity”, meaning strikes against Iran, in advance of the talks.
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also told state media on Monday that Qatar would release $6bn of nearly $12bn in Iranian frozen assets. The interim deal signed by the US and Iran stipulated that the release of frozen Iranian assets would be connected to the implementation of a new nuclear deal. US officials have said that no frozen Iranian assets had been released.
The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, has said his country will deploy troops along its entire southern border as part of a framework agreement signed with Israel on Friday. That deal calls for Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, to be disarmed before Israel withdraws its troops from southern Lebanon.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, has said its military will not withdraw “a millimetre” from southern Lebanon, where it is occupying a swath of land, until Hezbollah is disarmed. Israel will pull out of two locations as a “pilot programme” in which Lebanese forces will replace them.
But otherwise, he said, “people should not hold their breath wondering where the next place will be from which Israel will withdraw in Lebanon, because it will not happen until Hezbollah is disarmed”.
Katz also claimed he had received backing from the US Centcom chief, Adm Brad Cooper, who he said agreed that “the [Israel Defense Forces] will not withdraw from the three security zones – in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza”.
A senior Hezbollah official, Mahmoud Qmati, said on Monday the accord was “effectively dead” already but said Hezbollah would mainly rely on Iran to represent its interests during upcoming negotiations with the US.
Hezbollah “will hold on to our weapons”, he said in an interview with the New Arab website. “We will continue to rely on the Islamabad and Switzerland track and the pressure from Iran, which possesses leverage to pressure the Americans so that they, in turn, pressure the Israelis to withdraw from our land,” Qmati added.
