Donald Trump says Iran has agreed to almost everything the United States has asked for. The negotiators who just spent two days in Doha, however, did not get to the nuclear question at all.
Speaking in an interview with CNBC's Business Day, the US President offered an upbeat read on the state of the Iran deal. "We're negotiating, and we'll see whether or not. I think they've agreed to just about everything we need," he said. He also claimed Iran had been "totally defeated militarily," adding: "They have some missiles left, we could wipe them out too."
Trump went on to describe recent military exchanges with characteristic specificity. "I hit them three times last week very hard, because they sent a drone into a ship, I hit them. Then they did something else, and I hit them. I hit them three nights in a row, the week before I hit them two nights in a row, very hard," he said.
What actually happened in Doha
The reality at the negotiating table was more technical and less conclusive. According to sources cited by Reuters, US and Iranian negotiators spent two days in the Qatari capital discussing two specific issues from the interim agreement reached two weeks ago: maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the unfreezing of Iranian funds. The nuclear programme did not come up.
Qatar's Foreign Ministry described the Doha discussions as producing "positive progress" on issues related to the memorandum that halted the war in June and said talks were "building on the outcomes" of the earlier summit in Switzerland.
The next meeting is scheduled to take place after funeral processions for Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is due to be buried on July 9, the Qatari Foreign Ministry confirmed.
The nuclear question: Later
Even as Trump told reporters in Washington that "the denuclearisation of Iran is moving along well" and that "they've had very good meetings," his own Vice President acknowledged the nuclear issue had yet to be formally addressed at the table.
"Obviously, we're worried about the nuclear issue, we're going to start talking about that," JD Vance told reporters.
American and Iranian negotiators conducted their Doha discussions through separate meetings with Qatari and Pakistani mediators rather than face-to-face — a format that reflects how much distance still exists between the two sides on the issues that matter most.