The United States and Iran agreed on Sunday to halt recent military hostilities in the Persian Gulf and resume diplomatic negotiations in Qatar on Tuesday, according to U.S. officials, Reuters reported. The agreement aims to salvage a crumbling June 17 interim peace deal following days of intensive tit-for-tat strikes that threatened to plunge the region back into full-scale war.
The stand-down follows a wave of early Sunday missile and drone attacks launched by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. Those strikes came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump warned on social media that the Islamic Republic “will no longer exist” if it violated the accord. U.S. officials confirmed the Iranian attacks caused no American casualties or major structural damage, though debris damaged a residential building in Bahrain.
The regional friction intensified after a commercial vessel was struck in the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route, prompting retaliatory U.S. airstrikes on Saturday. Concurrently, Israel conducted airstrikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, adding further pressure to the geopolitical crisis. Under the renewed diplomatic push, both nations will temporarily pause military actions to allow free maritime transit through the strait.
