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Iran Says Its Delegation Will Be in Doha, but Not for Talks With U.S.
After President Trump said U.S.-Iran talks would take place in the Qatari capital on Tuesday, an Iranian official said its delegation would only be talking to mediators about getting the U.S. to uphold its cease-fire commitments.
Published June 29, 2026Updated July 5, 2026Shirin HakimAdam RasgonNatan OdenheimerElian Peltier and Aaron Boxerman
Here’s the latest.
An Iranian official contradicted President Trump’s claim that direct U.S.-Iran talks would be held in the Qatari capital on Tuesday, saying on Monday evening that an Iranian delegation would be in Doha over the next two days but not to hold talks with U.S. officials.
In comments carried on Iranian state media, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said that the delegation’s role was to work with Qatari mediators to get the United States to uphold its commitments under the cease-fire.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, two of President Trump’s closest advisers, were flying to the Qatari capital, Doha, for the talks, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, in comments to Fox News. Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff have helped lead negotiations with Iran in the past.
Four straight days of hostilities that began on Thursday have imperiled the tenuous, two-week-old cease-fire between the United States and Iran. Despite the truce, the countries have continued to stage attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital conduit for global oil and gas shipments that Iran effectively blockaded during the conflict.
Months of shipping disruptions in the waterway have roiled markets and rippled through the global economy. The flare-up of violence dashed hopes that commercial shipping through the strait would soon return to prewar levels.
The exchange of strikes began when Iran hit a cargo ship in the strait and another vessel on Saturday, U.S. officials said, prompting retaliatory American strikes. The Iranian military later said that it had targeted a U.S. naval base in Bahrain and a Kuwaiti air base with drones and missiles in response to the American attacks.
On Sunday, a U.S. official said that the two countries had agreed to halt the attacks in the strait and allow vessels to move through freely. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, and Iran did not confirm an agreement.
But while the latest round of violence has abated, analysts say the situation in the Strait of Hormuz remains uncertain, as both Iran and the United States vie to demonstrate that they have the upper hand.
Here’s what else we are covering:
Shipping slowdown: Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped significantly over the weekend, with 22 ships transiting on Sunday, down from 48 on Friday, according to Kpler, a maritime data tracking firm, following the American and Iranian attacks. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Sunday said that the country was solely responsible for managing the strait and warned that using an alternate route near Oman would lead to delays in fully reopening it. Read more ›
Lebanon fighting: The Israeli military said that it struck three Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon on Sunday in response to what it said were Hezbollah attacks on Israeli soldiers. Israel and Lebanon agreed last week to a U.S.-backed deal that could eventually lead to the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group, rejected the agreement.
Oil markets: Oil prices edged higher on Monday after a U.S. official indicated that the United States had agreed a deal to halt the latest U.S.-Iran fighting. Prices returned to prewar levels last week after rising sharply following the start of the war in late February. Read more ›
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed on Monday that Iran’s expert delegation would be in Doha over the next two days, according to remarks carried by Iranian state television. However, he said the delegation’s role was to not to meet with U.S. officials, but rather to pursue, through the Qatari mediator, the implementation of U.S. commitments under the memorandum of understanding that established the existing cease-fire.
The comments echoed remarks earlier in the day by Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei. President Trump had said that Iran-U.S. talks would be held in Doha on Tuesday.
Gharibabadi also said that Iran was making progress toward talks with Oman on new arrangements for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, including the collection of fees and changes to existing routes. While Tehran’s priority is to reach an understanding with Oman, he said, it would move forward on its own if Oman proved unwilling to establish a joint framework.
June 29, 2026, 3:00 p.m. ETA spokesman for Iran’s negotiating team, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Monday that an Iranian technical delegation would travel to Doha this week to follow up on the release of blocked Iranian assets under the memorandum of understanding, but that Iran had no meetings scheduled with U.S. officials in the coming days, according to Iran’s state broadcaster, IRIB.
Baghaei described Iran’s priority as ensuring that the memorandum is carried out before any final negotiations with the United States begin. The United States, he noted, had issued the necessary licenses for Iranian oil sales under a provision of the memorandum, and Tehran was monitoring their implementation.
June 29, 2026, 1:43 p.m. ETIran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in a post on social media on Monday that demining in the Strait of Hormuz would be carried out exclusively by Iran, a rare acknowledgment that Iran had mined the strait and an apparent response to President Emmanuel Macron’s message that France would work with its partners to help clear mines. Gharibabadi called the situation “sensitive and complex” and strongly advised France not to make it more complicated through “provocations.”
June 29, 2026, 11:16 a.m. ETPresident Emmanuel Macron of France said that the country would work with Oman and other countries on demining the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit route for much of the world’s oil and gas supplies. Macron made the comments after meeting with Haitham bin Tariq, the Sultan of Oman, in Paris on Monday.
The Gulf state has emerged as central to the contest for control in the strait, which Iran effectively blockaded during the war. According to the preliminary cease-fire that the United States and Iran signed this month, Iran and Oman will jointly discuss the future administration of the waterway.
June 29, 2026, 8:42 a.m. ETSteve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, two of President Trump’s closest advisers, will fly to Doha for the talks with Iranian officials this week, said Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman. The two men have helped lead the negotiations with Iran both before the U.S.-Israeli attack on the country in February and during the war.
Trump has repeatedly tasked Witkoff, a former real estate developer, and Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, with handling foreign policy crises as diverse as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza.
Jenny Gross reported from London.
Ships pull back from the Strait of Hormuz as Iran-U.S. strikes heighten risks.
Renewed attacks between Iran and the United States have injected fresh uncertainty into the calculations of shipowners weighing whether to free stranded vessels.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped significantly over the weekend, as a four-day exchange of attacks between Iran and the United States left some shipowners deciding it was too risky to pass through. Now, Iranian and U.S. officials have said they would hold talks on Tuesday. But the recent outbursts of violence underscored how closely tied any sustained resumption of shipping is to a cessation in the conflict.
Before the attacks, shipping traffic through the strait had risen to its highest levels since March 1, days after the start of the war. Many of the ships were taking a U.S.-backed route that bypassed Iranian waters.
But on Thursday, Iran reiterated a demand that ships use its waters and obtain permits to go in or out of the strait, warning that other routes were “unacceptable and extremely dangerous.” Later in the day, Iranian forces attacked a container ship that was transiting via Omani waters on the other side of the Persian Gulf. The United States conducted retaliatory strikes.
Iran attacked a second ship, a Panama-flagged tanker called the Kiku, with a drone on Saturday, according to the U.S. Central Command. By Monday, the United States and Iran had agreed to halt their attacks and allow vessels to move freely, according to a U.S. official.
Despite the risks over the weekend, 22 ships passed through the strait on Sunday, down from 38 on Saturday, according to data from Kpler, a maritime tracking firm. On Wednesday, 74 ships went through.
CMA CGM, a French shipping company, transited the strait through Iranian waters, according to the data from Kpler.
U.A.E.
CMA CGM did not comment on its decision to send the ship through Iranian waters. In a statement on Sunday, the company said that it was pleased to announce that its ship passed through the strait that morning. “This transit marks an important milestone in a regional context that remains complex and requires constant vigilance,” the company said. The ship’s transit in Iranian waters was reported earlier by The Maritime Executive.
Rebecca Gerdes, an analyst from Kpler, said that the CMA CGM vessel was one of a small number of European container ships to take the Iranian route with their location trackers on.
While the ship exited safely, major carriers are unlikely to attempt to send large container ships into the Persian Gulf anytime soon, Ms. Gerdes said.
“Once times are calm for a while, and vessels are going in and out smoothly, we may see some of the major carriers bring vessels back in,” she said. “It’s just too risky.”
A plan announced last week by the International Maritime Organization to evacuate some 600 ships and 11,000 seafarers stranded in the strait remained on pause on Monday. The agency had helped get some 115 vessels out before it suspended the program on Thursday.
In an interview on Monday, Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary-general of the I.M.O., said the agency would need assurances from the Iranian government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, that no vessels would be targeted and that both the Omani route and the Iranian route could be used.
“Once those guarantees are back onto the table that the vessels are not going to be attacked, then we’ll resume the evacuations,” Mr. Dominguez said.
On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had warned against trying to bypass Iranian waters.
“Any attempt to adopt new or separate arrangements from those currently being pursued by the Islamic Republic will only lead to further complications, delays in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and an increase in tensions,” he said in a news conference.
Peter Eavis contributed reporting from New York.
Show moreJune 29, 2026, 7:42 a.m. ETPresident Trump said in a social media post that U.S. and Iranian officials would hold further talks on Tuesday in Qatar. The last round of negotiations between the two countries took place in Switzerland and included Vice President JD Vance.
The United States and Iran signed an initial memorandum of understanding to cease hostilities this month, but the deal left many of the most important issues unresolved, including Iran’s nuclear program. American and Iranian officials are now working on a comprehensive agreement, but analysts are skeptical the two countries will reach a compromise easily.
June 29, 2026, 5:03 a.m. ETAna Swanson covers international trade and reported from Washington
China emerges as a relative winner from the Strait of Hormuz crisis.
The war in Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz have inflicted deep economic pain on many countries and sent some industries into a tailspin as they struggled with higher prices for energy, fertilizer and chemicals.
It may also have given China a competitive edge.
While the energy shocks and supply chain challenges stemming from the war have posed some challenges for China, the country has largely managed to avoid the kind of inflation spike and cascading economic and political effects that have afflicted many other nations.
The reason: China’s oil and gas reserves and clean energy supplies have allowed it to avoid the worst of the effects, according to an analysis published Monday by The Asia Group, a Washington-based consulting firm. That is reinforcing the country’s position as a competitive place for manufacturing.
The firm looked at the effects of disruptions in the strait and how it affected Asian economies and politics. One main takeaway is that the crisis has demonstrated Beijing’s ability to use prices, export controls, subsidies and a managed currency to absorb shocks in its economy.
The disruptions spurred by the United States have also helped Beijing to promote itself to other countries as the stable partner of choice, and accelerated global demand for clean energy technology like solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, industries that China dominates.
“It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that China is a winner here,” said Kurt Campbell, the chairman and co-founder of The Asia Group and a former deputy U.S. secretary of state in the Biden administration.
Disruptions to energy production and shipping stemming from the war in Iran have raised the cost of oil and gas globally over the past three months. Asia, the world’s biggest manufacturing hub, is particularly dependent on the Middle East for energy and industrial products. Asia sources 80 percent of its oil and 90 percent of its natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz.
But the impacts have gone far beyond the energy market. The war has also impeded the production and movement of certain critical products — like naphtha, used to make plastics and chemicals; helium, used in semiconductor factories and M.R.I. machines; and sulfur, which is needed to refine copper, nickel and critical minerals needed in electric vehicle batteries and electrical systems.
The Trump administration says it has reached a peace deal, and traffic had been picking up in the Strait of Hormuz. But over the last few days, Iran and the United States have traded new attacks and threats. Even if the cease-fire were to get back on track, many analysts expect the consequences of the war to linger. The threat of future closures or damage to ships that traverse the strait will push up insurance costs for shippers, and encourage companies to find longer and more expensive routes to avoid it.
In China, factories that make products like chemicals, metals and synthetic fibers are still heavily dependent on foreign sources of sulfur, helium and naphtha that come through the Strait of Hormuz.
But China has managed to avoid the brunt of many other impacts from higher global energy prices by drawing on its energy reserves and imposing export restrictions and quotas on its oil refineries. China’s oil imports were down by more than 30 percent annually in May, leaving a large supply of global oil for other countries to purchase.
Recent supply chain disruptions pose much more significant challenges for other Asian countries, according to the report, which used A.I. to model numerous scenarios for how governments, companies and other actors would respond to various outcomes in the strait.
In India, rising prices for fertilizer, fuel and food have stoked political opposition to the government. Higher fertilizer costs, combined with prospects for a weak monsoon season, could weigh on the more than 40 percent of India’s work force that are employed in agriculture.
In Japan, where fuel subsidies are already equivalent to about half the defense budget, higher energy prices could also increase fiscal pressures on the government. Rising prices and shortages of aluminum and naphtha, which are used to make auto parts, have led to production cuts and delays for Japanese carmakers.
The political and economic repercussions are even keener in Southeast Asia, where many countries are net energy importers, and governments have turned to emergency borrowing and extended subsidies to buffer their economies.
The Philippines has seen labor strikes and declared a national energy emergency. In Indonesia, nickel producers short of sulfuric acid have cut their output, while tourism in Bali has fallen because of higher airfares.
Amid the energy shock, many Southeast Asian countries are looking to China to provide solar panels, battery energy storage systems and electric vehicles, and China’s exports of those products have soared.
The energy crisis could also erode the perception of Southeast Asia’s manufacturing competitiveness, slowing a trend where companies have tried to move their factories out of China and set up facilities in other markets, the group’s analysts said.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has had a much more limited impact on the United States, given its energy production. But it could have some negative consequences in sectors like A.I. The Hormuz crisis has stressed Asian supply chains that make semiconductors, transformers, energy systems, copper and other materials, which are used to build U.S. data centers, the report said.
The biggest question now is how long the crisis persists.
Mr. Campbell said the impact on many countries and supply chains had been “deep and profound,” and could worsen if the crisis continues. Japan, South Korea and others have worked through many of the reserves that have so far buffered them from the economic effects.
“In many capacities, from jet fuel to a lot of diesel oils, we are basically almost running on empty,” he said.
Show moreJune 29, 2026, 4:28 a.m. ETOil prices edge higher as traders assess deal to suspend attacks in the Gulf.
Oil prices edged higher on Monday as traders assessed the state of an uneasy cease-fire in the Persian Gulf. An American official said the United States and Iran had agreed to halt attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, raising hopes that the hostilities of recent days might not escalate into a full resumption of war.
A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, said the United States and Iran had agreed to allow commercial vessels to transit the strategic waterway while continuing talks on the existing memorandum of understanding. Iran has yet to confirm the latest agreement.
The cease-fire had appeared to be on shaky ground after an Iranian drone strike on a cargo ship on Thursday. The United States responded a day later by targeting Iranian air-defense sites and other military infrastructure. In turn, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched missiles and drones over the weekend at a U.S. naval base in Bahrain and an air base in Kuwait.
The number of ships navigating the strait dropped steadily through the weekend.
U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to hold talks on Tuesday in Qatar, according to a social media post by President Trump.
Oil creeps higher.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, ticked up almost 2 percent on Monday to nearly $74 a barrel for September delivery, the most actively traded contract. Prices remain near prewar levels, where they returned last week after a series of declines.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose nearly 2 percent to around $70.50 a barrel.
Price of Brent crude oil
How much the international benchmark costs
Stocks gain.
The S&P 500 rose around 1.2 percent when the market closed for trading in the United States on Monday.
Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, were mixed. Shares in Taiwan were up 1 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose nearly 1.6 percent. South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI fell 0.2 percent.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, was flat.
How stocks are trading in the United States
Gasoline prices fall slightly.
Gas prices fell again on Monday, dropping by a penny to a national average of $3.86 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. Still, gas prices have risen 30 percent since the war began.
Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
The average price of diesel slipped to $4.86 per gallon on Monday, up nearly 30 percent since the start of the war.
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Here is a county-level look at where drivers are facing the highest costs.
What they are saying: ‘A new source of price pressure is emerging.’
Investors barely registered the brief resumption of hostilities over the weekend, Geoffrey Yu, a market strategist at BNY, wrote in a note. Attention has turned to U.S. labor market data, which will be released Thursday, and to the European Central Bank’s forum in Sintra, Portugal.
“The inflationary impulse from the Iran conflict is fading, but a new source of price pressure is emerging,” he wrote. The global A.I. expansion is intensifying competition for critical minerals and industrial materials, he added, creating constraints that are likely to put pressure on central banks.
A U.S. official said both the U.S. and Iran have agreed to halt attacks and allow vessels to move freely through the Strait of Hormuz. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, said technical talks are slated to continue on the memorandum of understanding, but declined to provide any specifics on when or where those talks would occur.
June 28, 2026, 7:34 p.m. ETIran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met with senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Sunday and alleged that the United States and Israel had violated parts of the recent memorandum of understanding, according to reports from his official Telegram channel. In a meeting with Iraq’s president, Nizar Amidi, Araghchi said the actions posed a serious obstacle to restoring regional security and stability. He said that Iran was acting in good faith but that it would act decisively in response to any breaches by the other side. In separate talks with Iraq’s national security adviser, Araghchi called for a regional security framework led by countries in the region, rather than outside military powers.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement on Sunday night that the Israeli military had destroyed underground infrastructure of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where they said weapons intended for strikes against Israel had been found. Before proceeding, Israel informed the United States and the American representative in Lebanon, according to the Israeli leaders, who said the military would remain in the territory it has occupied amid renewed hostilities with Hezbollah. Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to a U.S.-backed deal that would lead to the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah has rejected that pact.
June 28, 2026, 4:38 p.m. ETHours after a U.S. official told The Times that no negotiations between the United States and Iran had been called off, Mehdi Fazeli, a member of the office that publishes the works of Iran’s supreme leader, told the country’s state broadcaster that Iran had canceled technical talks that had been scheduled for Sunday. Fazeli cited the recent clashes and Tehran’s desire to see whether some conditions of the preliminary cease-fire would be implemented, including access to blocked funds.
June 28, 2026, 4:12 p.m. ETIran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, urged Iraq’s prime minister not to allow his territory to be used for attacks on Iran during a meeting in Baghdad on Sunday. Araghchi extended that push to all countries in the region, according to an account of the meeting with Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi that was posted on Araghchi’s official Telegram channel.
Araghchi also attended a meeting on the funeral arrangements for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s late supreme leader, which will include processions at Shiite holy sites in Iraq.
Several days of funeral ceremonies are expected to be held in Iran, beginning in Tehran on July 4 and ending on July 9 in Mashhad, home to the Imam Reza shrine, one of Shiite Islam’s most important sites.
Reporting from JerusalemWhite House reporter