By Humeyra Pamuk and Katharine Jackson
WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The United States said a high-level meeting on Iran would be held in Doha on Tuesday with President Donald Trump’s top envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner attending while technical talks would also continue on the sidelines.
In a social media post on Monday, Trump said that Iran had requested a meeting and that it would take place in the Qatari capital without giving any details.
Moments later, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News that Witkoff and Kushner would attend the talks.
“Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be flying to Doha for high-level meetings this week, as we continue to discuss the memorandum of understanding. On the sidelines of those high-level talks, will be the technical talks,” she said.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’re holding up our end of the ceasefire. Violence will be met with violence,” Leavitt added.
The U.S. and Iran signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding aimed at ending four months of conflict on June 17, under which both sides agreed to cease hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically transits.
But tit-for-tat weekend strikes threatened to derail the fragile accord. A return to talks would follow several days of strikes and counterstrikes since an Iranian projectile hit a cargo vessel in the strait on Thursday, with both the U.S. and Iran accusing eachother of breaking the interim ceasefire.
“There were attacks on commercial vessels that the United States of America, directed by the president, responded to, and that will continue to happen, but we hope we don’t see that. The president obviously wants to see the peace process play out,” Leavitt said on the “Fox & Friends” program.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson, Humeyra Pamuk and Susan Heavey; editing by Doina Chiacu)
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