live Strait Of Hormuz Still A ‘Warlike Operations Area’

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Qaribabadi said part of the $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in Qatar will be made available to Tehran in the form of goods.

Qaribabadi, speaking to the official IRNA news agency, said the decision was made during talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, on July 1.

He said during a meeting with officials from the Qatari Central Bank it was decided that “based on the declared needs of our country, the necessary goods would be purchased and made available to Iran.”

He did not provide further details and there has been no US confirmation of Qaribabadi's claim.

Qaribabadi headed an Iranian delegation to Qatar, where he said indirect technical talks were also held with US officials.

The release of billions in frozen Iranian assets held abroad is part of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by Tehran and Washington on June 17 aimed at ending months of war.

US President Donald Trump said on June 23 that any unlocked Iranian funds would be used to purchase American corn, soybeans, and wheat. The money, he said, would be held "in escrow, controlled by" Washington and spent "exclusively" on American food and medical supplies.

But Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati swiftly denied there was such an obligation. He added that if American prices and quality proved more competitive than other suppliers, “there is no obstacle to purchasing from that country.”

International shipping unions and employers said they have continued to designate the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global oil and gas supplies, a “warlike operations area.”

“This decision recognises the continuing and significant risk to life and the rapidly evolving situation in the area,” the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and the Joint Negotiating Group (JNG) said in a joint statement.

Iran effectively closed the strategic waterway after the United States and Israel launched a war against the Islamic republic on February 28. Traffic in the strait surged after Tehran and Washington signed an interim peace deal on June 17. But two separate attacks on vessels last week led to a sharp drop in traffic.

Iran fired on commercial vessels in the strait on June 27, leading US forces to strike Iranian coastal radar and military sites in an effort to protect shipping.

At least 14 seafarers have been killed and more than 40 vessels attacked during the conflict.

US Vice President JD Vance has said that talks in Doha between US and Iranian officials "are going well," even though it was still "pretty early."

When asked about the indirect technical talks in the Qatari capital, Vance said “obviously, we're worried about the nuclear issue, we're going to start talking about that.”

"If they try to rebuild that nuclear program, if they refuse to let inspections in...if they...resume shooting at commercial vessels, which they have stopped for a few days, obviously the president still has a lot of options on the table,” Vance added when speaking to reporters at a US Navy air station in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said "very good meetings" were held in Doha , where Qatar and Pakistan are serving as mediators.

When asked about different factions within the Iranian government, the vice-president said "you've got people who actually recognize the last 47 years of their government has been a mistake, and that they need to change their relationship with the United States, with Europe, with the Gulf Arab countries. And then you've got a few people who are still kind of attached to the old ways. We think we see a lot of momentum for the people who are trying to turn over a new leaf.”

On June 30, Vance said Washington expected "real concessions" from Tehran, saying that it would judge Iran by its actions rather than its rhetoric.

Kpler, a commodities intelligence company, reported 34 verified vessel crossings on June 30 in the Strait of Hormuz.

The data indicated a broad mix of commercial, energy-linked, and support traffic, while route visibility remained fragmented across Iranian and Omani routes.

"That pattern points to continued operational continuity, but not a settled return to normal routing," Kpler said in a post on X on July 1.

Meanwhile, the International Maritime Organization has listed 49 confirmed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and the Middle East as of June 30.

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Masud Pezeshkian, on June 17 states that Iran will make its "best efforts" to ensure toll-free passage through the strait for "60 days only," pending a final agreement being reached.

Since it was signed, Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that Iran will charge "service fees" for vessels to pass through.

Efforts to assert Iranian control of the strait have continued, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps saying vessels may only pass through Iranian waters, not the southern route through Omani waters that Washington has encouraged shipping to use.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who took part in today's indirect talks in Doha with US officials, announced that working groups have been formed to follow up on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) and to negotiate a final agreement, but talks in this format have not yet begun.

Gharibabadi told reporters on July 1 after meeting with Qatar's prime minister that consultations are continuing to determine the time and place for the start of negotiations through mediators, and that these talks will begin if the necessary conditions are met.

According to ISNA news agency, after this meeting, a trilateral meeting of senior negotiators from Iran, Qatar, and Pakistan was held to review the implementation process of the MOU.

Iranian officials had previously emphasized that technical talks on the MOU in Doha would be held indirectly, with the mediation of Qatar and Pakistan, and that no meeting between senior Iranian and American officials was planned at this stage.

Indirect technical talks between ‌Washington and Tehran are under way in Doha, with Qatar and Pakistan serving as mediators, a ‌source with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters on July 1.

US envoy Steve ‌Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner are not attending the talks themselves, the source said. The pair met with Qatar's prime minister and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on June 30 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 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two parties," Qatar's Foreign Ministry said in a post on X.

The trio also addressed the latest regional developments, particularly cease-fire in Lebanon.

Earlier, Iran said it would meet with Qatari mediators on July 1, adding that Iranian officials were set to travel to Doha.

Meanwhile, Qatar's Foreign Ministry said that no high-level meetings between US and Iranian officials are scheduled in Doha in the coming days.

"To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct meetings scheduled between the two parties in the coming days," Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari told reporters on June 30.

Tanker Trackers, a company that tracks and monitors oil tankers, has released new information indicating that Iran has exported 50 million barrels of crude oil in the past two weeks since the United States lifted its naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Based on this figure, Iran exported 1.66 million barrels per day of oil in June, the company said. Tanker Trackers says exports from most other countries in the region are still nowhere near pre-war levels.

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament and head of the country's negotiating team, also said in a TV interview on June 30 that "since the end of the US naval blockade, we have exported more than 40 million barrels of oil."

In this interview, Qalibaf also called the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which began after the cease-fire in April, "the most severe type of war," which, he said, had besieged "the people and the people's bread."

In this regard, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on June 29 that despite the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil by the United States, no country except China has purchased Iranian oil at a discount, and other countries have not yet started purchasing Iranian oil due to concerns about the return of US sanctions.

US Vice President JD Vance has again signaled that the White House is prepared to use force against Iran if diplomacy fails, raising the stakes around a 60-day memorandum of understanding (MOU) that has halted open hostilities but left the core disputes unresolved.

In an interview on The Michael Knowles Show released on June 30, Vance cast the US approach toward Iran as a stark choice: a longer-term agreement anchored in permanent, verifiable nuclear inspections, or renewed military action to preserve what Washington sees as gains already secured. He said President Donald Trump wants diplomacy to continue but only if Tehran accepts enforceable limits on its nuclear program.

Vance described Iran's public messaging as contradictory, pointing to what he said was a gap between Tehran's public denial of peace talks and its acknowledgment of ongoing technical discussions.

"They'll say, 'No, no, there aren't peace talks ongoing, but there are technical talks between the United States and Iran about the peace deal,'" Vance said. "It's a Persian negotiating tactic and a Persian rhetorical device that I don't understand."

Responding to critics who have urged a harder military line, Vance defended Trump's approach as one of calibrated coercion rather than open-ended escalation. "The president is saying, 'I'm willing to drop bombs,' and he's clearly shown that he's willing to drop bombs, but only if it serves an objective," he said.

To read the full report, click here.

In Washington, analysts warn the current arrangement amounts less to a peace agreement than a temporary pause in fighting. That tension between diplomacy and deterrence was at the center of a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on June 30.

Speaking at the CFR panel, retired General Joseph L. Votel -- former Commander of US Central Command (2016–2019) -- said US forces remain capable of sustaining deterrence through the current 60-day negotiation period. This comes even as Washington reassesses the vulnerabilities exposed by the recent conflict.

Votel noted that Washington retains significant operational flexibility because of its naval presence, particularly through two carrier strike groups operating in regional waters.

"Right now we are sustainable from a military standpoint," Votel said, while cautioning that maintaining such a posture becomes harder "after several months."

For Elisa Catalano Ewers, senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the CFR, the larger challenge is fundamentally political.

She noted that while the Gulf states bore the brunt of Iran's attacks during six to seven weeks of hot conflict, the subsequent pause in fighting has done little to resolve the "core issues" driving regional instability, specifically Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, drone networks, and proxy forces, which were left out of the current memorandum of understanding.

To read the full report, click here.

US Vice President JD Vance said Washington would judge Tehran by its actions rather than its rhetoric, saying the purpose of the negotiations was to determine whether Iran was willing to make meaningful concessions.

"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."

"We care a lot less about what the Iranians say. We care a lot more about what they do," he said. "The thing I've learned from the president of the United States is whether friend or foe, you shouldn't trust anybody, you should trust people's actions,"

"If they act in the right way, if they behave in the right way, they get a lot of benefits."

Vance said the administration was seeing both positive and negative signals from Iran and would continue following President Donald Trump's direction in the negotiations.

He added that even if diplomacy failed, Washington believed it had already achieved its principal objective.

"If... the Iranians don't behave, if they don't make the concessions in the negotiations that we need to see, their nuclear program is still destroyed, their conventional military is still destroyed, and the United States is still in a much stronger position relative to the Iranians," he said.

"We have all the cards in the negotiation. We obviously want it to be successful, but even if it's not successful, we've accomplished the core mission, which is to ensure that the Iranians never have a nuclear weapon."