Are US and Iranian negotiators meeting in Doha? What we know about talks

xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoIran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has refuted any planned meeting with the US but says it will send an expert delegation to Doha to discuss the release of frozen Iranian assets [Lintao Zhang/Getty Images]By Urooba JamalPublished On 30 Jun 202630 Jun 2026

President Donald Trump has claimed that American negotiators will hold talks with Iran in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Tuesday after days of tit-for-tat attacks, but Tehran has denied any planned meeting with the United States.

Iran, however, said it is sending an expert team to Doha to follow up on the release of frozen Iranian assets, agreed as part of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed this month to halt the four-month US-Israeli war on Iran.

The latest exchange of strikes came as the two sides try to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz, a global energy chokepoint that Tehran has used as geostrategic leverage.

Both sides have accused each other of violating the MoU, which calls for an end to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon, as talks for a final deal have been delayed.

So are talks between Iran and the US in Doha actually happening, and if so, what is on the table?

Trump announced the meeting on Monday in an all-caps social media post: “IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!”

Speaking to reporters, the US president was also characteristically ambivalent, stating that the “meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not”.

He doubled down on his claim that the US is doing very well in the fight to denuclearise Iran.

“We’re winning militarily. It’s almost won militarily, I would say. And it’s really very simple. It’s the denuclearisation of Iran. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, and they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve agreed to that,” Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Tehran won’t be allowed to run its nuclear programme, specifics of which have yet to be thrashed out between the two sides as part of the June 17 MoU.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, told US media that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner will fly to Doha for “high-level meetings this week”.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has rebuffed any planned meeting with the US but said it will send an expert delegation to Doha to follow up on the release of frozen Iranian funds.

Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran’s “current priority is to ensure the implementation” of the memorandum of understanding with Washington.

“We will not have any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days. And the fact that American representatives are travelling to Qatar has nothing to do with the Iranian delegation’s trip,” he said.

Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior negotiator for Iran, had earlier said in comments published by Iranian state media that no talks had been confirmed.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Tuesday said that US envoys Kushner and Witkoff have arrived in the country, but will not engage in direct meetings with Iranian officials.

The two will meet with mediators and discuss the progress of negotiations, the spokesman said.

He said the issue of frozen Iranian funds is directly linked to the progress of negotiations between Tehran and Washington. The foreign ministry spokesman added that the $6bn in frozen assets has not yet been transferred to Tehran.

On the Strait of Hormuz, he said a hotline dedicated to de-escalation was used to contain last week’s exchanges of fire between the US and Iran.

Leavitt said a “technical meeting” will be held on the sidelines of the high-level meeting. This technical meeting has been ongoing, discussing the “nuts and bolts” of how to implement the MoU, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said, reporting from Washington, DC.

“But for the high-level meeting, the focus is going to be the issue that has plagued the relationship in recent days and led to this uptick in violence, and that is the Strait of Hormuz and who controls it,” Hanna said.

The Iranian delegation said it will be focused on the unfreezing of Iranian assets, particularly after the Americans announced that there will be a provision for $6bn in Qatar to be released at the initial stage of the MoU.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday said $6bn in frozen assets held in Qatar would be released.

Earlier, however, Trump and his top officials put conditions on the release of $12bn in funds frozen in Qatar. Trump said the released frozen money “will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States”.

Trump and other US officials insisted Iran’s access to the funds will hinge on its compliance. Tehran, however, wants assurances it can actually use the money rather than face another arrangement in which the funds are nominally released but in effect frozen.

According to Muhanad Seloom, an assistant professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar isn’t a “neutral letterbox here”.

“It mediates and holds around $12bn in frozen Iranian funds. That makes Doha custodian of Tehran’s carrot,” Seloom told Al Jazeera.

The Strait of Hormuz remains Iran’s card to play while the frozen billions remain Qatar’s, so “deconfliction” is more likely than a deal, he added.

According to Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Vall, the Iranian technical team is not being sent to discuss the next phase of political talks between the two countries but rather the level of implementation of the MoU.

“Iran has a lot of objections, criticisms and concerns regarding the slow pace of the implementation of the MoU, including about Article 1 in that MoU about the ceasefire in south Lebanon,” Vall said from Tehran.

Iran additionally remained concerned with ongoing disputes over the Strait of Hormuz, he said.

Attacks by Iran and the US from Thursday to Monday marked the first exchange of attacks since the MoU was signed and have threatened to unravel the agreement.

Iran called a US-backed effort to open a new navigation route closer to Oman to bypass an Iranian route as “unacceptable”.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the MoU gives Tehran control of the waterway. The Strait of Hormuz would remain under Iranian control for 30 days, he said.

Fighting erupted on Thursday when a container ship and an oil tanker using the US route came under attack. Washington blamed Tehran, responding with strikes on infrastructure and military installations on Iran’s southern islands. Iran then retaliated by targeting US military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.

According to Seloom, the planned talks in Doha, therefore, aren’t a breakthrough but damage control.

“The weekend Hormuz strikes shrank a nuclear round into one clause. Tehran’s public denial isn’t refusal. It’s leverage,” he said.

The Strait of Hormuz remains among the most thorny issues between the two sides, particularly Article 5 of the MoU, which calls for safe passage for commercial ships through the key waterway.

“Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa,” Article 5 of the MoU says.

The US and Iran, however, appear to have sharply different interpretations of what that provision entails. Iran argued that Article 5 gives it the authority to regulate maritime traffic during the 60-day negotiating period aimed at reaching a final agreement.

The US, by contrast, maintained that Iran should refrain from interfering with shipping and allow vessels to pass unhindered.

Tehran also argued that the shipping routes closer to Oman were established without Iranian coordination and, therefore, violate Article 5.

Lebanon is another key battleground. It was pulled into the conflict when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli air strikes. Iran has insisted that fighting must stop everywhere and Israel must withdraw from Lebanon before moving ahead on other issues to be negotiated.

But a separate US-brokered framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel allows Israeli forces to stay in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Hezbollah was not part of those talks and has rejected that deal.

Iran has also rejected the deal, saying the MoU already included an end to the fighting in Lebanon.