Qatar Says No High-Level U.S.-Iran Talks in Doha as Envoys Meet Mediators

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Doha on Tuesday to meet Qatari mediators, but Qatar and Iran both said no high-level meeting between American and Iranian officials was planned. The visit came a day after President Trump said Iran had asked for a meeting that “will take place tomorrow in Doha,” according to The Times of Israel.

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said there were currently no high-level meetings between the Iranian and American sides under the agreed negotiating mechanism, the Qatar News Agency reported. Witkoff and Kushner, he said, were meeting Qatari mediators and officials on regional issues including the Iran negotiations and Lebanon, with no direct talks with Iran during the visit.

That memorandum is a 14-point interim accord dated June 17. It gives both sides 60 days to negotiate a permanent truce and to resolve issues including Iran’s nuclear program, according to The Times of Israel. The newspaper said the war began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Exchanges of fire over the weekend tested the deal, the newspaper reported.

Technical teams from both countries remained in session. Ansari said they have been in contact, directly and indirectly, since earlier talks in Lausanne, and that Qatar will keep technical meetings going between rounds of high-level negotiations. He said the Strait of Hormuz is a key issue in the memorandum, alongside Iran’s nuclear program, and that the first phase of the understandings focuses on mine clearance and safe navigation, the Qatar News Agency reported. Qatar’s position, he said, is that international maritime law guarantees freedom of navigation.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said the next day’s discussion in Doha would be with Qatar and would cover implementing the interim deal, including the release of frozen Iranian assets. He said no meeting “at any level” with the U.S. was scheduled and that Iran had not reached the stage of negotiating a final agreement, The Times of Israel reported. He said attacks on Iran’s objectives would violate Article 1 of the memorandum and could make continuing the process difficult.

Ansari said the frozen funds are tied to a 2023 U.S.-Iran arrangement that created a humanitarian channel in Qatar. Qatar does not own the money, he said, and any transfer requires both parties’ agreement and progress in negotiations, which has not happened.

The terms are contested in Washington. According to Politico, as relayed by The Times of Israel, Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave lawmakers a tense briefing in which they were pressed on sanctions relief and Iran’s enriched uranium; the officials said a final deal should bar Iran from keeping the uranium. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the briefing confirmed that Iran would gain billions of dollars in oil revenue while keeping leverage over the strait. Israeli officials oppose the interim terms, which do not end Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the newspaper reported.

Ansari said Qatar sees no alternative to dialogue and that the door to negotiations is now open.