- The agreement comes after Iranian attacks on US military facilities.
- Trump had said the United States could “complete the job militarily.”
- Each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire.
Iran and the United States have agreed to halt recent hostilities in the Gulf and renew talks over their Strait of Hormuz dispute, a U.S. official said on Sunday, raising hopes of salvaging an interim peace deal that was under pressure after days of tit-for-tat attacks.
“Technical talks are planned to continue in all areas of the MoU. Both sides will withdraw for now and ships can move freely,” the official said, referring to the 14-point memorandum of understanding agreed on June 17 under which the strait would be reopened to traffic.
Axios, which first reported the cessation of hostilities, citing a senior US official, said talks would resume on Tuesday in Qatar.
A return to diplomacy would come after several days of attacks and counterattacks since an Iranian projectile hit a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, with both the United States and Iran accusing each other of breaking a provisional ceasefire agreed to on June 17.
Iran launched missiles and drones at US military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain early Sunday, shortly after President Donald Trump threatened that the Islamic Republic would cease to exist if it did not honor the agreement to end the war.
Meanwhile, Israel said on Sunday it had once again attacked Iranian-backed armed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, destroying underground infrastructure used by the group in a village in southern Lebanon. This came after another attack on Saturday, which closely followed its latest ceasefire agreement with Lebanon on Friday. Iran says fighting in Lebanon must end for broader deal to hold.
The US military earlier said it had attacked Iran again, hours after an oil tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Tehran has largely closed for most of the conflict.
“There may come a point where we are no longer able to be reasonable and we will be forced to militarily complete the work we began so successfully,” Trump said on social media, ahead of the Axios report.
“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” he added.
The 14-point interim peace deal was aimed at stopping the fighting, which the United States and Israel began on Feb. 28, and reopening the strait while talks on issues such as Iran’s nuclear program progressed.
Violence and accusations follow the peace agreement
A round of mediated talks, led by Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, were held in Switzerland a week ago and Washington waived sanctions on Tehran, but fighting has since resumed and intensified.
About an hour after Trump’s post, Kuwait’s military said its air defenses were responding to missile and drone attacks, while Bahrain said sirens had sounded there.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement that its navy and air forces had launched missile and drone operations against US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The guards said the US strikes had violated the ceasefire and “will lead to the complete suspension of all diplomatic processes”, state television Press TV said. The IRGC naval command said US bases in the region “will experience hell in the coming days.”
A US official, who confirmed that Iran had attacked US facilities, told Reuters that no US casualties or major damage to US sites in the Middle East had been reported, but that the situation was still developing.
Hours later, alarms sounded for a second time in Bahrain, where authorities said an Iranian attack damaged a residential building in Muharraq province, with no casualties reported. Bahrain urged the UN Security Council to hold an urgent session to hold Iran accountable.
The Kuwaiti military said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles without damage or casualties.
Separately, Qatar said one of its citizens had died after suffering shrapnel injuries aboard a ship that had gone missing on Saturday. A second person was injured in the incident, which was due to “military operations in the area,” the Interior Ministry said, without specifying the location or assigning blame.
