Uncertainty over Qatar diplomacy clouds prospects for US-Iran deal
By Andrew Mills
DOHA, June 30 (Reuters) - Top U.S. envoys were due to arrive in Qatar on Tuesday, but uncertainty over the timing and content of any diplomatic talks raised questions over efforts to bring a lasting halt to the Iran war and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The diplomacy follows exchanges of fire over the weekend that tested the June 17 interim accord between the United States and Iran. The 14-point pact allowed 60 days for the two sides to negotiate a permanent truce in the conflict that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 and to resolve thorny issues including the future of Iran's nuclear programme.
The conflict disrupted global trade in oil and other goods, exposed Gulf states to Iranian drone and missile fire and killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon.
The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his envoy Steve Witkoff were expected to land in Doha on Tuesday for "high-level meetings", with technical meetings to continue on the sidelines.
But while Iran is sending a technical delegation to Qatar this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said this had "no relation" to the Americans' visit, with no talks scheduled between the two sides.
"We will not have any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days," Baghaei said.
A senior Iranian official said a meeting in Doha would be limited to discussions on managing the Strait of Hormuz and reducing tension.
Still, oil prices slipped further on Tuesday on the de-escalation since the weekend, and were set for their biggest quarterly loss since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
IRAN TRIES TO EXERT CONTROL OVER STRAIT
After the war began four months ago, maritime traffic through the strait, which previously carried about a fifth of the global trade in oil and liquefied natural gas, came to a virtual standstill.
Iran has since sought to exert control over the strait alongside Oman, which lies across the waterway, saying it plans to charge fees to ships to use it and obstructing vessels that stray outside defined paths.
Since Thursday, the U.S. has accused Iran of hitting at least two commercial ships with missiles or drones, and bombed Iranian military facilities in response.
Iran in turn launched missiles and drones at U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday, with both sides accusing each other of breaking the ceasefire.
The war pushed up global inflation and has put Trump under political pressure domestically before midterm elections in November that will determine control of the U.S. Congress.
On Monday, the White House said Trump had authorised a temporary suspension of some duties on imports of phosphate fertilizer from Morocco, as U.S. farmers grapple with shortages and shipments of fertilizer through the Strait of Hormuz are expected to return to pre-conflict levels only gradually.
"The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "We're going to find out."
In Iran, where the theocratic leadership survived the war but faces domestic anger over a battered economy, two members of the Revolutionary Guards were killed in what the elite force described as a "terrorist" shooting in a western province.
The interim deal between the U.S. and Iran also provides for an end to the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But Lebanon's powerful parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, cast doubt on a separate, U.S.-brokered framework deal between Lebanon and Israel to halt that war.
Analysts said the deal risks entrenching a stalemate by tying Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon to Hezbollah's disarmament.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux, Writing by Aidan Lewis, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
