US and Iran agree to stand down after weekend strikes
The United States and Iran agreed to “stand down for now” and return to negotiations, a US official said, capping a weekend in which the two traded strikes and each accused the other of violating the ceasefire memorandum signed in June. The de-escalation follows two nights of US strikes on Iran’s southern coast and Iranian missile and drone attacks on US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The fighting had centered on competing claims of bad faith. Tehran called the US strikes a “clear violation” of the June 18 memorandum, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that any breach would mean the “suspension of all related processes” — language that put the entire framework at risk. President Trump, for his part, accused Iran of violating the truce first and warned that Iran “will no longer exist” if attacks continued. The decision to pull back, rather than press the exchange further, suggests both governments still judge the agreement worth preserving.
That agreement — announced on June 14 and signed in mid-June after the G7 summit — gives the sides 60 days to reach a technical deal on down-blending and monitoring Iran’s highly enriched uranium, in return for sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian funds. Its central bargain links safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz to the lifting of the US naval blockade. Each round of strikes erodes the trust that timetable depends on, so a return to talks matters less for what was agreed this weekend than for keeping the 60-day clock running at all.