Steve Witkoff, the United States' special envoy to the Middle East, listens as President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte meet in the Oval Office at the White House, June 24, in Washington. AP-Yonhap
Two U.S. envoys arrived in Qatar on Tuesday for talks with mediators about the implementation of an initial deal to end the war in Iran, an official said.
The visit by Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special Mideast envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, comes after a weekend of crossfire in the Persian Gulf over efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic.
The envoys won’t be having direct negotiations with Iranian diplomats while in Qatar’s capital, Doha, said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry. Instead, mediators are working for the time being as go-betweens for the talks, which won’t include any high-level officials, he added.
Such indirect negotiations have happened in the past between Iran and the U.S. However, the two previous rounds of talks collapsed into the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in 2025 and the recent Iran war.
