(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump on Monday said that the United States and Iran will hold negotiations in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday despite the two sides trading strikes over the weekend, though Iranian officials have denied the claim.
“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA! President DJT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The White House said that President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will be traveling to Qatar for the meeting.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that Iranian officials would travel to Qatar but said they wouldn’t hold talks with US officials. “In the coming days, we will have no negotiation meetings at any level with the American side, and the trip by US representatives to Qatar is unrelated to the trip of the Iranian delegation,” he said.
Baghaei said there would be no negotiations on reaching a final deal until Iran is satisfied that the US is living up to its commitments under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). “Iran’s current priority is to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the MoU, and we are seriously pursuing our demands in this regard,” he said.
Hours earlier, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said that “technical meetings of the working groups have not been scheduled for this week,” though he added that consultations with Qatar have continued.
“The first round of technical talks within the framework of the designated working groups will be held once conditions are met and after agreement is reached on the date and venue,” Gharibabadi said, according to Iran’s PressTV.
Axios reported on Sunday that the US and Iran have agreed to stop striking each other and would hold talks in Qatar to discuss the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz rather than hold technical discussions on Iran’s nuclear program in Switzerland. An Iranian official also said that the nuclear talks were suspended due to the US attacks on Iran.
Iran has maintained that the language of the MoU means it is solely responsible for transit through the Strait of Hormuz and that any other arrangements violate the agreement. The exchange of strikes began after a drone hit a tanker that was attempting to cross the strait under a UN-backed route that wasn’t coordinated with Iran.
The US then bombed Iran on Friday, and Iranian forces hit back at US bases in Bahrain, and another tanker was struck by a drone. The US then struck targets in Iran for the second time, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday morning. Since then, there have been no known US or Iranian attacks.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
