On 1 July, Washington, Tehran and Doha gave three irreconcilable accounts of the same negotiation in Qatar's capital. Donald Trump said Iran had "requested a meeting", and a senior US official told Bloomberg the technical talks were "positive and progressing"1. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the opposite: Tehran "will not have any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days", and its delegation "has nothing to do with" the US visit2.
Deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi called reports of technical working-group talks "not confirmed". Qatar backed neither version. Spokesman Majed al-Ansari said US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were meeting Qatari mediators, not Iranian officials3. The two had flown in after the 29 June verbal halt in the fighting, and Iran had already fixed its posture, skipping the 28 June session and sending officials only to observe.
The $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets runs the same way. Masoud Pezeshkian claimed on 29 June that the funds, held in Qatar, would return to Tehran4. Qatar and the United States contradicted him within a day: the money stays frozen and would move only "according to the advancement of negotiations"56. A president announces a transfer its custodian says has not happened, over a meeting the counterparty denies attending.
