President Donald Trump said “very good meetings” were held in Doha as US and Iranian officials gathered in the Qatari capital for indirect technical talks, with Qatar and Pakistan serving as mediators.
“The denuclearization of Iran is moving along well,” Trump told reporters on July 1, as both Washington and Tehran reported the talks mainly focused on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MOU).
Signed last month by Trump and Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian, the deal envisioned a path to a final agreement to end the conflict in the region.
It provided for waiving US oil sanctions on Iran, while tying the end of wider sanctions and the release of frozen assets to Iran’s implementation of commitments, such as “down-blending” its stocks of highly enriched uranium under IAEA supervision.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who took part in July 1 negotiations, announced that working groups had been formed in Doha to follow up on the MOU and negotiate a final agreement, but talks in that format had not yet begun.
The diplomatic push followed recent exchanges of fire between US and Iranian forces in the region after Tehran targeted a commercial ship it said had strayed from its approved route through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We hit them very hard…but we’re getting along very well,” Trump said of the talks, adding that Iran had “come a long way” in its negotiating position.
Earlier in the day, US Vice President JD Vance said Washington expected “real concessions” from Tehran, saying that it would judge Iran by its actions rather than its rhetoric.
“Part of what we’re trying to do in this negotiation is to see how serious they actually are,” Vance told Fox News. “And to be serious, they’ve got to not just say the right things. They’ve got to make real concessions.”
In a separate comment on June 30, Vance also signaled that the White House was prepared to use force against Iran again if diplomacy failed.
US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were reportedly not attending the Doha talks, but the pair met with Qatari officials a day before to lay the groundwork for the technical talks.
“The meeting discussed developments in the ongoing talks between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran within the framework of the [MOU] between the two parties,” Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X.
The statement also said the meeting addressed the latest regional developments, particularly the cease-fire in Lebanon, which remains a key negotiating point in a potential broader agreement to end the conflict in the region.
