US, Iran agree to continue indirect talks in Qatar

U.S. and Iranian negotiators held separate meetings with Qatari and Pakistani mediators in Doha on Wednesday and agreed to keep talking, after Qatar said the discussions produced “positive progress” toward resolving disputes tied to the war and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, said on X that the next meeting would be scheduled “at the earliest possible time” after funeral processions for Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The funeral is set to begin Saturday in Tehran, NPR reported. Al Jazeera reported that six-day funeral processions are planned in Iran and Iraq, and that Khamenei was killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike on the first day of the war.

The Doha talks brought together U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. Iran’s delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, did not attend, Al Jazeera reported.

The meetings were indirect. Gharibabadi said the Iranian side had no direct talks with the Americans. Qatar and Pakistan mediated the separate discussions.

“Qatar & Pakistan mediators concluded separate meetings with the US & Iranian negotiators in Doha today, with positive progress made on issues related to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, building on the outcomes of the Lake Lucerne Summit,” al-Ansari wrote. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry issued an identical statement Thursday, Al Jazeera reported.

The talks followed days of tit-for-tat military attacks by the United States and Iran amid a dispute over shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that carried about one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas in peacetime. The United States and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, NPR reported.

The strait remains a central sticking point. Under an interim deal, Iran and the United States agreed to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. Tehran, however, has insisted it must control vessel routes and later charge passage fees. The United States and many Gulf Arab states oppose the charges.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the Doha discussions included traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. “Obviously, we’re worried about the nuclear issue,” Vance told reporters in the United States. “We’re going to start talking about that.”

Iranian state television reported Wednesday that a foreign container ship ran aground in the strait after using a route not approved by Iran. The report said the vessel “ran aground with its cargo because of shallow waters along the route it had chosen and was unable to continue sailing,” and said shippers needed to follow the instructions of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The Guard’s navy has warned that “any entry or exit through routes other than the ‘Route of Authority’ in the Persian Gulf could lead to irreparable incidents.”

Gharibabadi said one meeting addressed what Iran called U.S. “violations of its obligations” and that the sides agreed to establish a communication channel to resolve disputes. He said another meeting concerned the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. “It was agreed that, based on the needs communicated by our country, the required goods would be purchased and made available to Iran,” he told Iranian media.

Lebanon was also discussed, according to Iranian state media and Al Jazeera. Iran has demanded an end to fighting between the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia and Israeli forces and has called for Israel to give up land it occupies in southern Lebanon. Israel says it must hold the territory and retain freedom to strike Hezbollah, which has launched attacks into northern Israel.

Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appears to be recovering. Al Jazeera, citing Kpler data, reported that ship movements rose by more than 50 percent in the week of June 22-28 compared with the previous week. Thailand said 10 of 11 Thai-flagged vessels or vessels chartered by Thai operators had safely left the strait, while South Korea said all but two of its 26 stranded vessels had departed.

In a separate development Wednesday, a U.S. Navy MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush made an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea, the Navy’s 5th Fleet said. Three of four crew members were rescued, and one remained missing. The Navy said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”