US-Iran talks expected to resume this weekend in Switzerland have been stalled amid recent hostilities, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said on Sunday the United States would continue targeting Iranian military infrastructure if Tehran threatened shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei called on the judiciary on Sunday to pursue domestic and international legal cases over damage from US-Israeli strikes Iran.
Iran alone is responsible for managing and fully reopening maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz under recent understandings, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday in Baghdad.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned US airstrikes on several monitoring and surveillance facilities along the country’s southern coast, calling them a renewed violation of an interim agreement meant to end the war.
A mourning site set up near the place where Ali Khamenei was killed has been shut down after shroud-wearing ultra-hardliners turned it into a three-day sit-in, exposing a widening rift inside Iran’s loyalist camp over how to use the slain leader’s memory.
The site, known as Ravagh Keshvardoust, had been turned into a shrine-like space in central Tehran for prayer, mourning and ritual gatherings after Khamenei’s killing.
In Iranian religious architecture, a ravagh usually refers to a covered hall or portico attached to a shrine. In this case, the term was being used for a temporary devotional space around the site of Khamenei’s death.
According to Jamaran, a news outlet close to the family of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini, organizers closed the site after a group of kafan-poushan, or shroud-wearers, arrived from Mashhad on Ashura (June 25) and occupied the space under the banner of “avenging the blood of the slain leader.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow expects to resume discussions with the United States on Iran once the current active phase of the crisis has passed.
"Once all the developments in the active phase on the Iran track are over, we expect to welcome the representatives of the U.S. administration, with whom we have already met repeatedly in Moscow," Putin said.
He added that Russia was ready to continue negotiations and discuss "all the details" and "all the modalities" of the issues previously raised during talks in Anchorage, Alaska last summer.
Iran's exiled prince Reza Pahlavi has called on the United States not to engage with Tehran, in an apparent protest against President Donald Trump’s diplomatic opening with Iran.
In a call to action, Pahlavi said Iranians would hold a “Global Week of Action for a Free Iran” from July 4 to 9, beginning with gatherings outside US embassies in capitals around the world.
“Our message to the American people and government on their Independence Day is clear: Do not deal with terrorists. Choose the people of Iran,” he said.
Pahlavi said the campaign would coincide with what he described as the Islamic Republic’s “propaganda and deceptive programs” around the burial of slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as the sixth month anniversary of the January 8-9 uprising.
“Two hundred and fifty years ago, America chose freedom,” he said. “Today, the people of Iran are also fighting for freedom.”
Slovenia’s President Natasa Pirc Musar said the war was “a mistake” and that she believes US President Donald Trump realizes that, according to comments to Al Jazeera.
She commended Qatar’s mediation role in helping stop the war and reach an agreement between Washington and Tehran.
Pirc Musar also said the European Union appears diminished on the international stage because of the lack of unity in its foreign policy positions.
The United States and Iran have agreed to halt military strikes and hold a new round of talks later this week, according to Axios, citing US officials.
Axios report added that the two sides anticipate meeting on Tuesday in Doha, Qatar's capital to work out their dispute over the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, an Iranian official said Iran did not take part in technical talks slated for Sunday due to recent attacks on the country and unfulfilled conditions of the memorandum of understanding with the United States.
Iran did not take part in technical talks slated for Sunday due to recent attacks on the country and unfulfilled conditions of the memorandum of understanding with the United States, a member of the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of Iran’s Supreme Leader told state TV on Sunday.
"For example one of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds, if there is no access then this condition has not been fulfilled," Mehdi Fazaeili said.
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the funeral ceremony for former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, due to be held in the coming days, may be “the most important event of the 21st century.”
Aref said preparations for the ceremony were well advanced and that special measures had been taken to prevent crowding and congestion.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged countries in the region not to allow their territory or facilities to be used for attacks against Iran, state media quoted him as saying in a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi on Sunday.
Araghchi said regional states must help safeguard security and peace by preventing “aggressors” from using their territory and facilities for “illegal attacks” against Iran.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned recent attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait and in the Strait of Hormuz, adding that implementation of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding was “essential.”
“I strongly condemn the recent attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait and in the Strait of Hormuz,” Cooper said on X.
“These reckless attacks, including on international shipping, are putting civilian lives at risk, and curtailing freedom of navigation. The implementation of the US–Iran agreement is essential to keep people safe and ships moving,” she said.
Qatar’s interior ministry said on Sunday a Qatari national was killed after sustaining shrapnel injuries from “military operations in the area” after a vessel carrying him and another person went missing.
The ministry said the second person was injured and that the missing vessel was located early Sunday after search operations began a day earlier.
It did not give the location of the incident or say whether the shrapnel was linked to Iranian drones launched against US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday.

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