By Gram Slattery and Timour Azhari

ABU DHABI, June 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio faces a delicate mission this week pitching Washington's Iran peace deal to Gulf Arab leaders who fear excessive concessions will strengthen Tehran and reshape the region's security balance and oil flows.

Rubio will meet them in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, before traveling to Kuwait and Bahrain, where he will meet officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of monarchies that also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman.

By Andrea Shalal and Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - Tehran stands to gain billions of dollars from a 60-day reprieve from U.S. sanctions announced on Monday, but unwinding more than four decades of restrictions poses legal, political and commercial challenges that could take years.

At issue is whether an interim U.S. deal with Iran can translate into lasting economic relief, given the complexity of dismantling a sanctions regime that spans U.S. law, international measures and private-sector risk concerns.

By Humeyra Pamuk, Dave Graham and Nandita Bose

BUERGENSTOCK, Switzerland/WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The United States waived sanctions on Iran for 60 days from Monday after the first talks under a nascent peace deal, with U.S. President Donald Trump saying he will "do what I have to do" if Iran does not stick to its side of the agreement.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said talks with Iranian officials in Switzerland had laid a good foundation for a final peace deal, although Iran denied that it had begun discussions of its nuclearprogram.

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Monday it opened a probe into a small coffee shop chain in New York City which posted online that it would have turned away pro-Israel U.S. Representative Dan Goldman had it recognized him during a weekend visit.

"The Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation and will bring an enforcement action if warranted," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said on X.

By Feras Dalatey

June 22 - A United Nations official warned on Monday that efforts to repair divisions and stabilise southern Syria have stalled nearly a year after deadly sectarian violence in a Druze-majority province shook the country.

A U.N. investigation in March found more than 1,700 people, most civilian members of the Druze religious sect and some members of the Bedouin community, were killed in southern Sweida province in July 2025. It said Syrian government forces, tribal fighters and Druze armed groups may have committed war crimes.

By Nandita Bose and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday "I will do what I have to do" if Iran does not stick to its agreement with Washington.

"If Iran doesn't live up to their agreement, or if they're not behaving, I will do what I have to do," Trump told reporters.

Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed an interim U.S.-Iran deal last week, more than three months after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and Iran responded with its own attacks on Israel and Gulf states with U.S. bases.

By Alexander Cornwell and Benjamin Raab

JERUSALEM, June 22 (Reuters) - American allies of President Donald Trump this week defended him to an Israeli public anxious about a U.S. interim deal with Iran and White House criticism that together appeared to signal fissures in Israel's decades-old alliance with Washington.

The U.S.-Israeli relationship has been on a roller coaster, from the early confidence they shared after their joint attack on Iran to public disagreements between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to end the four-month-old war.

The International Monetary Fund's Africa director on Monday warned that the economic fallout of the Iran war was creating a "difficult moment" for the region, and that it would take months for Gulf energy production to ramp back up.

"We are now in a difficult moment for the region, in particular after the war in the Middle East," Zeine Zeidane told reporters at the IMF's headquarters in Washington.

"Even though there is a ceasefire today, we know that the disruption will take time to be resolved," he said.

Maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday continued to flow at a faster pace than before the US-Iranian agreement on talks to end the Middle East war, according to tracking firms, despite Tehran's announcement of a renewed closure.

"The latest figures suggest a cautious but visible rebound in traffic following the MoU (memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran), although the daily pattern remains volatile," Mihail Todorov of AXSMarine, a shipping data provider, told AFP.

By Gram Slattery

ABU DHABI, June 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel Tuesday through Thursday to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, on a trip that will give the Trump administration a chance to sell its preliminary Iran accord directly to Gulf Arab allies.

While in Bahrain, Rubio will also meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, a grouping of six Sunni monarchies that also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on Monday.