Iran Rejects Final US Deal Until Washington Upholds June 17 Memorandum of Understanding

Iran said it would not resume negotiations toward a final agreement with the United States until Washington fully upholds the June 17 memorandum of understanding, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei announcing during his weekly press briefing on Tuesday that "Negotiations on a final agreement with the United States will begin only after progress is made on several key provisions of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding."

Baghaei said Iran would assess developments in the coming days before deciding when and in what format to resume talks, while Tehran linked the delay to repeated violations of the MOU’s provisions, including hostilities on all fronts and a U.S. attempt to route ships through the Strait of Hormuz via a non-Iranian corridor.

Al Jazeera

The dispute over the Strait of Hormuz fed into the diplomatic standoff, with Iran saying it restricted passage at the outset of the war on February 28 and then fired warning shots at violating vessels before the U.S. struck targets along Iran’s southern territories.

Tehran also framed the Strait of Hormuz as an exclusively Iranian responsibility, with Ebrahim Azizi, head of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, calling it an “inseparable” part of Iran’s national sovereignty and its management as exclusively the responsibility of the Islamic Republic.

In parallel, Iran appeared to have called off sending a delegation to Doha to meet with American negotiators this week, while officials said only a team would be dispatched to speak with Qatari officials and discuss the release of Iranian assets from Qatari banks.

Qatar said U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are in Doha but will not meet Iranian officials, with a Foreign Ministry spokesperson saying the envoys will meet only with mediators to review implementation of the U.S.–Iran memorandum of understanding.

Iran, for its part, ruled out any meetings with the United States "in the next few days" even as technical discussions linked to implementing a 14-point memorandum of understanding continue in Doha, according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei.

Anadolu Ajansı

Baghaei said there are no scheduled meetings between Iranian and US representatives in the immediate future and clarified that Doha engagements are focused on implementing provisions of the previously agreed memorandum, including the release of Iran's frozen assets with the Qatari side.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Mohammed Al-Ansari said the U.S. envoys are in Doha to meet with mediators and Qatari officials and that "They are not here for direct negotiations with the Iranians."

A separate account described the Doha session as occurring during the 60-day Phase 2 window, with the White House saying Iran requested a meeting while Baghaei stated on June 30 that "we have no negotiation meetings at any level with the American side," and the text containing no mechanism to determine which account is operative.

The frozen-asset dispute centered on the $6 billion figure, with Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari saying the USD 6 billion currently held abroad has not yet been transferred to Tehran and that release would proceed "according to the advancement of negotiations."

“Iran's chief negotiator and the Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced on Tuesday that his country will not begin final-terms negotiations with the United States until the provisions of the memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries are implemented”

An-Nahar

Hindustan Times framed Article 11 as the make-or-break issue, quoting the MoU text that "The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU."

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said $6 billion of $12 billion in Iranian resources held in Qatar "will be released and returned to the country," while the United States denied any release had been agreed, leaving the two sides with competing accounts of what Doha is meant to accomplish.

The stakes also extended to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said free passage through the strait is limited to sixty days only in accordance with the memorandum of understanding and that sovereignty over the strait belongs to Iran and Oman.

Ghalibaf added that Iran is prepared for war if the dialogue is not implemented, saying "We are moving forward with dialogue, but if the dialogue is not implemented, we are also prepared for war and we will respond accordingly," while Tehran linked the sequencing of final talks to implementation of clauses including Article 11.