U.S., Iran to continue negotiations on Day 2 of talks in Qatar

July 1 (UPI) — Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and their Iranian counterparts are planning to meet with Qatari negotiators Wednesday for ongoing peace talks.

On Tuesday, Witkoff and Kushner met with the prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. They are scheduled to meet with him again today.

Iran and Qatar have said that there will be no direct, high-level meetings between United States and Iranian officials and that all discussions will be through Qatari intermediaries, The New York Times reported. Today’s negotiations will be about the cease-fire agreement and getting it implemented, a spokesperson told The Times.

Iran’s negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, in an interview with Iran’s state media Tuesday, laid out the most important provisions of the memorandum of understanding signed on June 17.

Ghalibaf said the most important prerequisite provisions to Iranian negotiators were Articles 1, 4, 5, 10 and 11, CNN reported.

Article 1 demands an end to all fighting, including in Lebanon. Israel and Lebanon signed a cease-fire agreement on Saturday, but Hezbollah hasn’t agreed to it.

Article 4 says that the United States must lift its naval blockade and Iran must allow shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Navy is no longer blocking the strait but it still has a presence there. Article 5 says that Iran will allow passage through the strait with no tolls for 60 days.

The next two articles are about Iranian money and oil sales. Article 10 says the U.S. will allow waivers for Iran to sell its oil, which has happened – at least for 60 days. And Article 11 says that the United States will make frozen Iranian assets available, which is unclear. The United States has said that Iran must fulfill its commitments first.

Traffic through the strait is picking up, with 34 ships passing through on Tuesday, CNN said, though that’s far from pre-war levels, which saw about 100 per day.