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Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff will be representing the US side
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US envoys are flying into Doha for high-level peace talks between Washington and Tehran tomorrow, after the countries halted a renewed spate of strikes over their Strait of Hormuz dispute.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff will brief the full US House of Representatives and Senate by phone on Monday on the deal with Iran, a White House official said.
“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It came just hours after Tehran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Monday that the technical working group meetings had not yet been planned.
Iran and the US had traded attacks in the Gulf in recent days as each accused the other of violating an interim deal signed less than two weeks ago to end their four month war.
On Sunday, Iran said its naval and aerospace forces carried out a joint missile and drone operation targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, and warned further violations would receive a “crushing response”.
Earlier, the US military said it had struck Iran for the second day after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz.
Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff are expected to brief US Congress on peace talks and Washington’s tentative agreement with Iran.
Sources told CNN and Politico that the envoys would speak to house lawmakers at 4pm ET.
It would be the first time that a broad group of members have been briefed on the Trump administration’s efforts to wind the war.
It comes after both Republicans and Democrats called for more transparency over the agreement.
A top Iranian diplomat has denied claims that talks between Iran and the US were planned in Doha this week.
According to Iranian state media, Kazem Gharibabadi said: “technical working group meetings were not scheduled for this week.”
The deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs added that technical discussions would not take place until “necessary conditions” were met and a date and venue was agreed on.
“The first round of technical talks within the framework of the designated working groups will be held after the necessary conditions are met and following agreement on the date and venue, and consultations on these matters are continuing through the mediator countries.”
Qatar’s ministry of transport has suspended sailing and maritime activities “in the interest of public safety”.
It said it was urging “all owners and users of marine vessels, including pleasure boats, fishing boats, jet skis, and all similar marine vessels, to temporarily suspend navigation and marine activities, effective from the date of issuance of this circular until further notice.”
It did not provide a reasoning behind the measure, but it comes one day after Qatar said one of its nationals was killed after sustaining injuries from shrapnel due to “military operations in the region” after his vessel went missing.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff will brief the full US House of Representatives and Senate by phone on Monday on the deal with Iran, a White House official said.
Amirhossein Miresmaeili hears from unimpressed protestors within Iran who feel betrayed by Donald Trump’s promises of regime change.
Iran’s president has said that $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets would be released by Qatar as negotiations with the United States were challenged by attacks across the Persian Gulf this weekend.
Pezeshkian offered praise for the interim deal in comments published Monday by the state-run IRNA news agency, calling it “a great victory for the Iranian people.”
“Based on the plans made, $6 billion out of the total $12 billion of Iranian resources in Qatar will be released and returned to the country, and necessary follow-ups are being carried out,” he said. He did not elaborate.
So far, U.S. officials say no frozen Iranian assets have been released.
President Donald Trump’s top envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Doha on Tuesday for talks with Iranian officials, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has said.
“Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week, as we continue to discuss the memorandum of understanding. On the sidelines of those high-level talks, will be the technical talks,” she said.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’re holding up our end of the ceasefire. Violence will be met with violence,” Leavitt added.
Trump had earlier announced in a post on Truth Social that a meeting would take place in Qatar at the request of Iran after both sides traded strikes over the weekend.
Qatar’s interior ministry said on Sunday a Qatari national was killed after sustaining injuries from shrapnel due to “military operations in the area” after a vessel carrying him and another person went missing.
The ministry said the second individual was injured, adding that it located the missing vessel in the early hours of Sunday after search operations that started a day earlier.
It did not give the location of the incident and did not say whether the shrapnel was linked to Iranian drones launched against US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday.
One round of mediated talks, led by vice president JD Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, was held in Switzerland a week ago and Washington waived sanctions on Tehran.
But fighting has since resumed and intensified.
In a Truth Social post, Donald Trump said on Sunday: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started.”
About an hour after Trump’s post, Kuwait’s army said its air defenses were responding to missile and drone attacks, while Bahrain said sirens had sounded there.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement its navy and air forces had launched missile and drone operations targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The Guards said US strikes had violated the ceasefire and “will result in the complete halt of all diplomatic processes”, state-run Press TV said. The IRGC navy command said American bases in the region “will experience hell in the coming days”.
Hours later, alarms sounded for a second time in Bahrain, where authorities said an Iranian attack damaged a residential building in Muharraq province, with no casualties reported.
The Kuwaiti army said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles with no damage or casualties.
Separately, Qatar said one of its nationals had died after sustaining injuries from shrapnel aboard a vessel that had gone missing on Saturday. A second person was injured in the incident.
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