Talks push on as US, Iran attacks dent ceasefire

DUBAI – The United States and Iran traded a new round of strikes on June 11, even as negotiations on a preliminary agreement gained momentum after President Donald Trump threatened further military action if Tehran fails to make concessions.

Three Iranian sources and a European official said the US and Iran were exchanging messages on details of a memorandum after reaching a political understanding.

Some issues, however, had yet to be discussed in detail, including a mechanism for the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds, they said.

“This war, from a military standpoint, is a dead end. The Americans could not achieve their goals by attacking Iran. There has been progress in negotiations,” said one of the Iranian sources.

Mediators Pakistan and Qatar suggested backchannel efforts to negotiate an end to the war were ongoing in spite of the flare-up, though Islamabad cautioned it was “hard to be an optimist” in light of the latest escalation.

Affirming that bleak assessment, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on June 11 that the latest round of US strikes on Iran “effectively rendered the ceasefire of April 8, 2026, meaningless”.

In a statement carried by state media, Iran described the overnight strikes as “extensive” and warned of “highly dangerous consequences arising from this escalation,” without giving specifics.

In their second straight day of tit-for-tat attacks, the US hit surveillance, communications and air defence facilities, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced a “punitive operation” targeting a US base in Jordan and Gulf states reported incoming fire.

The strikes took place while a Qatari delegation was in Tehran, with a diplomatic source saying the discussions were “conducted in coordination with the United States”.

Trump, who has repeatedly maintained negotiations with Tehran were close to a deal, said on June 10 that Iran keeps “playing us for suckers” and will now “have to pay the price”.

Hours after, CENTCOM said US forces began strikes early on June 11 on Iran in response to its “unwarranted and continued aggression”, later adding it had completed its attacks.

Iranian media reported explosions across the south, with at least three people wounded in Tehran province.

Jordan said it shot down 20 Iranian missiles, while Kuwait’s military said its air defences engaged “hostile aerial targets”.

Bahrain, which hosts a US naval base, said an 11-year-old girl suffered minor injuries and homes and cars were damaged by “sinful Iranian aggression”.

The renewed hostilities came as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that if Trump requires it, “we’ll negotiate with bombs”.

Earlier, American broadcaster Fox News reported that Trump said Iranian leaders called him directly in the White House Situation Room as the US bombs began falling.

Iran quickly denied Tehran did so, the IRNA news agency said.

Fox reporter Trey Yingst, who spoke to Trump, quoted the president as saying that if Iran does not accept US terms for ending the war, “we’ll bomb the S out of them tomorrow night”.

“We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along,” Trump told reporters early on June 10.

Hegseth suggested the strikes could extend into a third night, saying they would be “strong” and “clear”.

Mediators, however, were keeping up diplomatic efforts, with a team of Qatari negotiators departing Tehran following talks “that lasted into the early hours of this morning”, one diplomat said.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman for fellow mediator Pakistan, which hosted an initial round of talks between the warring parties, said it had not “lost hope” in a negotiated resolution.

Still, said Tahir Andrabi, “it is hard to be an optimist in the new exchange of hostilities”.

Saudi Arabia, which also came under Iranian attack during the war, called on June 11 for more talks under Pakistani and Qatari mediation.

China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, likewise called for more negotiations, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman urging the warring parties “to immediately cease military operations, respond to the mediation efforts of relevant countries, and achieve a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire”.

Talks were focusing on the need to reach an agreement on a mechanism for releasing Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks, according to sources who spoke with Reuters.

“Iran wants US$6 billion (S$7.7 billion) to US$12 billion of its frozen funds to be released to Tehran, while Washington wants to release funds in stages for humanitarian goods and rejects returning funds to Iran outright,” one Iranian source said.

He said the priority for Iran’s clerical establishment is not a comprehensive settlement but a framework that restores a minimum breathing space for the establishment in Tehran by unlocking its frozen assets and halting the war.

Iran has renewed its warnings over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas transport that it has essentially closed.

“Are you making the sacred Strait of Hormuz unsafe?! We will make the region hell for you,” Majid Mousavi, head of the Iranian Guards’ aerospace force, said in a social media post.

Iran said the straits was closed to all maritime traffic, warning that it was extending its effective blockade of the waterway.

The Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a regulator that Iran recently announced would manage the waterway, said that “the Strait of Hormuz is closed until further notice” in response to the recent escalation of military strikes, state media reported.

The US and Iran had already imposed parallel blockades around the waterway.

Iran had allowed some ships to move through the strait, but the number of vessels has fallen from hundreds a month to a trickle since the start of the war in February.

On June 10, three Indian sailors on a commercial vessel were killed when the US attacked the ship off the coast of Oman, New Delhi’s shipping minister said on June 11.

India’s Foreign Ministry summoned a top US diplomat in New Delhi after the attack on the MT Settebello to lodge “a strong protest”.

The Iranian navy said it also hit two ships trying to sail through the strait, state television IRIB and the Mehr agency reported.

Another Iranian news agency, Tasnim, quoted the country’s military operational command as saying the crucial waterway was “completely closed” and that “any vessel traffic” there would be targeted.

But CENTCOM denied that, saying “commercial ships are continuing to transit in and out of the Strait of Hormuz tonight”. REUTERS, AFP