US, Iran to resume talks after weekend violence tests ceasefire

The U.S. and Iran were set to resume talks Tuesday, U.S. officials said, after a weekend of armed exchanges cast fresh doubt on a ceasefire aimed at ending months of war.

“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!” President Donald Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social.

The White House also said special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to the Qatari capital on Monday for a meeting with Iranian officials Tuesday, according to Axios.

Iran had yet to publicly confirm that an agreement had been reached, but an unidentified U.S. official told several news outlets Sunday that both sides “will stand down for now.”

Washington and Tehran will continue technical talks on the 14-point memorandum agreed to June 17 for reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the official told Axios, adding that “vessels can move freely” in the waterway.

A second U.S. official said the two sides had decided “to stop all the kinetic activity,” a reference to active warfare.

The signing of the U.S.-Iran memorandum this month triggered a 60-day window to negotiate a final agreement to end the conflict.

The war began in late February with U.S.-Israeli airstrikes that killed senior Iranian leaders and devastated the country’s military. Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which much of the world’s oil and gas transits.

During talks in Switzerland last week, the U.S. delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, agreed to set up a hotline between the U.S. military and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to coordinate traffic in the strait, but it was not in place as of Saturday, Axios reported.

“Deconfliction channels are up and running,” an official told CNN on Sunday, after several days of hostilities that reignited late last week.

On Thursday, an Iranian one-way attack drone hit the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely as it transited the strait, U.S. Central Command said.

In response, U.S. aircraft struck Iranian missile and drone storage facilities and coastal radar sites, CENTCOM said.

The following day, Iran struck the Panama-flagged tanker M/T Kiku, which was carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil through the strait, according to the command.

That strike prompted Navy and Air Force fighter jets to hit 10 Iranian sites, CENTCOM said. The targets included military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and mine-laying capabilities, the command said in a separate statement.

On Sunday, Iranian state media said Tehran had launched a “large-scale missile and drone operation” targeting eight U.S. military installations in the region.

The back-and-forth tested the durability of the ceasefire, with Trump threatening to “complete the job” that the U.S. had started. Iran said it would walk away from talks if the ceasefire was violated again.

Despite the U.S. repeatedly declaring the strait open to traffic, Iran’s foreign minister told reporters Sunday in neighboring Iraq that his country alone would manage the reopening of the vital waterway over the next 30 days before allowing traffic to resume to pre-war levels, state media reported. 

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also underscored the memorandum’s provision ending hostilities on all fronts, calling on Washington to pressure Israel to stop its attacks in southern Lebanon and withdraw from the country.

Commercial shipping also continued through the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. According to vessel-tracking service MarineTraffic, 108 verified crossings were recorded between June 26 and 28. Traffic was heaviest June 26 before easing over the following two days.

Talks slated for this week were originally set to take place in Switzerland and focus on Iran’s nuclear program, but were moved to Doha, Qatar, and refocused on reopening the strait, Axios reported, citing a source with knowledge of the discussions.