Steve Witkoff

Witkoff's Ukraine brief has moved in fits. On 4 March he and Jared Kushner told Kyiv they would not travel to Istanbul for the third US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral, because the Iran war had pulled them away. Six months later, on 5 September, the pair spent more than three hours with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Russia announced nothing.

The Miami round was planned for two days and ended on 9 October after one. Kyiv's TEAM included Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President, and Rustem Umerov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Axios reported the envoys raised curbs on US intelligence over Ukraine's refinery strikes. Washington now wants technical three-way talks with Russia by the end of October, possibly in the UAE, which puts Witkoff's line to Moscow back at the centre.

Witkoff flew to Doha on 30 June, a day after the United States and Iran agreed to stop fighting without signing anything. His task was to turn the June framework into practice, but the two delegations never met; Qatar and Pakistan carried messages between separate rooms.

The 1 July round showed how little that format gave Washington's envoy to work with. Qatar spoke of progress on a 14-point memorandum, while Iran's government contradicted itself: Tasnim said the round ended without result and the foreign ministry said talks continued. Qatar then put the next round on hold until after Ali Khamenei's funeral, which ran from 4 to 9 July. For six days, from 4 to 9 July, Witkoff had no live channel to Tehran.

On 22 September Witkoff and Kushner met Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in New York. It was the first structured American contact with Tehran of the war. Iran's price had four parts: lift the US naval blockade, waive oil sanctions, release about $12bn in frozen assets and hold a regional Ceasefire covering Lebanon, with nuclear talks to follow.

Trump rejected Iran's seven-day plan for reopening the strait of Hormuz on 26 September, and Qatar carried a written US answer back on 29 September. The gap Witkoff must close is one of order rather than substance: Washington wants the nuclear file and the strait settled in one package, Tehran wants the strait handled first. Oman hosts the next round, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE lobby to keep the blockade.