The United States and Iran have agreed to halt military strikes against each other and will meet in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday to resolve their escalating dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, Axios reported on Sunday.
“We decided to stop all the kinetic activity,” a senior US official told Axios, as the two sides plan to meet Tuesday in Qatar’s capital to work out their dispute over the Strait of Hormuz.
Tuesday’s talks were originally planned to take place in Switzerland but the recent flare-up has moved them to Doha and changed their focus to the Hormuz standoff, as disputes and gaps remain despite the memorandum of understanding reached earlier this month.
The agreement to halt strikes comes after a 48-hour exchange of fire that threatened to unravel the fragile ceasefire signed only 11 days ago.
The US military struck multiple targets in Iran on Saturday at the direction of President Trump, in response to what Washington described as continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.
Hours later, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation.
Iran did not take part in technical talks originally scheduled for Sunday, citing 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 television.
At the heart of the dispute is control of the Strait of Hormuz.
A United Nations maritime agency had begun moving stranded vessels out of the Strait via an alternative Omani coastal route earlier this week but halted those operations following Thursday’s attack and said they would not resume without guarantees of safe passage.
The US and Iran are still working through the terms of a broader settlement under the 60-day window set by last week’s memorandum of understanding, including the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Trump had warned on Saturday that there may come a point where the United States would be forced to militarily “complete the job” and that if that happened the Islamic Republic of Iran would “no longer exist.”
Tuesday’s talks in Doha are now seen as the last chance to stabilise the ceasefire before the region slides back into open war.
(The Whistler)
