The U.S. and Iran have reportedly agreed to stand down after days of tit-for-tat hostilities that threatened to unravel a recently struck preliminary agreement to end the war.
A week after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a memorandum of understanding, the two sides traded strikes around the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that Iran militarized at the start of the war. The MOU, which the U.S. and Iran signed on June 17, began a 60-day negotiation period towards a final deal to reopen the Strait and permanently end the war that the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28.
The U.S. and Iran were in the midst of negotiations in Switzerland before the attacks late last week. Vice President J.D. Vance said the two parties agreed to establish a direct military-to-military communication channel to coordinate traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which surged following the MOU. Iran rejected claims of a channel, and Axios reported that as of Saturday, any such hotline was not yet operational.
Iran canceled technical talks with the U.S. that were scheduled for Sunday, Iranian state-linked media reported. Iranian authorities pointed to the attacks over the weekend and said it had to check if certain conditions of the MOU, like the release of frozen Iranian assets, had been fulfilled before talks could continue.
Those talks are now back on, a U.S. official told Axios on Sunday. The two sides have decided to stop attacking each other and will meet on Tuesday in Qatar, the official said. The talks, which were originally meant to take place in Switzerland and focus on Iran’s nuclear program, will now focus on the Strait of Hormuz, Axios reported.
The Strait of Hormuz has been a key point of contention between the U.S. and Iran and important leverage for Iran in negotiations. Iran has repeatedly said it wants to control the Strait even after the war, potentially charging service fees for transit, which the U.S. has said it will not allow. Analysts previously told TIME, however, that the MOU left the issue unresolved. Iran agreed to allow shipping through the Strait, but also maintained that it would discuss the future administration of the Strait with Oman.
Traffic through the Strait fell sharply after the flare-up. Analysts warned that any disruptions to shipping could extend the timeline for gas prices to return to pre-war levels.
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“Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely,” a U.S. official told Reuters.
Tit-for-tat hostilities
The exchange of attacks last week arose over what appear to be conflicting interpretations of the MOU, specifically its terms on the Strait of Hormuz.
Last Thursday, an Iranian projectile hit a Singapore-flagged cargo vessel sailing through the Strait. Following the attack, Tehran’s recently-created Persian Gulf Seaways Management Organization said that vessels not traveling on designated routes would not be guaranteed safe passage. The Iranian navy said the route, which skirts Iranian waters and hugs the Omani coast, had not been approved. While the vessel had not been part of the United Nations’ evacuation mission, the U.N. had been using the same route to escort ships stranded in the Persian Gulf.
Iran rejected the coordinates of two new temporary shipping lanes as part of the U.N.-sponsored and Oman-coordinated evacuation plan on Thursday. Coordination with the IRGC navy was “mandatory” for any transit through the Strait, Iranian authorities said.
On Friday, the U.S. carried out fresh strikes against Iran “as a powerful response to yesterday’s attack on a commercial ship,” U.S. Central Command said. The strikes hit drone storage sites, coastal radar installations and missile infrastructure in southern Iran, including along the Strait of Hormuz and on Qeshm Island.
On Saturday, a Panama-flagged tanker came under fire from an Iranian drone in the waterway.
The U.S. military said it retaliated later that day by striking Iranian military facilities in southern Iran, including surveillance, drone, and mine-laying capabilities.
And President Donald Trump issued a grave warning to Iran: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” he posted on social media on Saturday night. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
Shortly after, Iran launched missiles and drones at U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said as a result of the U.S. strikes, which it called a cease-fire violation, “all diplomatic processes” would be halted, state-linked Press TV reported. The IRGC navy warned that U.S. bases “will experience hell in the coming days.”
Later on Sunday, Bahraini authorities said Iran had launched more projectiles, damaging a residential building in Muharraq province. Kuwait’s army also said it intercepted two ballistic missiles. No casualties were reported in either attack.
Meanwhile, Israel continued to mount attacks on Lebanon over the weekend, despite signing the latest cease-fire agreement on June 26. Analysts previously told TIME that Israel’s aggression in the region could jeopardize U.S.-Iran negotiations, as Iran has made it clear that any cease-fire deal must include Lebanon.
