US envoys are meeting with Qatari mediators in Doha to discuss negotiations with Iran, the Gulf State said, after Tehran and Washington agreed to a memorandum of understanding this month to halt the war in the Middle East.
Iran said a team would head to Doha this week, but contradicted US President Donald Trump’s claim that direct talks will take place.
Qatar also said on Tuesday that no high-level meetings or direct talks between the US and Iran were planned in Doha.
Here is what we know about the discussions:
The meeting
Trump posted on Monday that Iran had requested fresh talks in Qatar the following day.
“I will take place tomorrow in Doha!” he wrote.
After his social media post, his spokesperson 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”.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al Ansari, confirmed on Tuesday that Witkoff and Kushner were in Doha but said, “They are not here for their negotiations with the Iranians.”
They were there to “meet with mediators and Qatari officials, and the talks will be around all regional issues, including, of course, negotiations with Iran but also including Lebanon”, he added.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei, meanwhile, said on Monday that a delegation of experts would only travel to Doha “later this week” for discussions on the deal, not for direct US talks.
“We have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement,” he said, noting that “over the coming days, we will not have any negotiation meetings with the US side at any level”.
Key issues
A key issue in the accord that needs to be ironed out is Iran’s chokehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz, with the agreement providing for its reopening.
Traffic in the strait dropped over the weekend after a vessel was struck while transiting the waterway on Saturday.
