Donald Trump orders envoys to halt all negotiations with Iran

President Donald Trump has ordered US envoys to stop all negotiations with Iran, declaring on August 13 that there are “no talks ongoing or planned” with Tehran. The directive effectively closes a diplomatic window that had been propped open since June, when a 60-day ceasefire brokered through the Islamabad Memorandum offered a brief reprieve from escalating tensions between the two countries. That ceasefire expired around mid-August without renewal. Trump ruled out any extension, framing the moment as Iran’s “last chance” to come to the table. Tehran, for its part, has denied that formal negotiations were ever really happening in the first place. How it got here The Islamabad Memorandum, signed in June 2026, was supposed to buy time. The agreement established a 60-day ceasefire while intermediaries, primarily Oman and Qatar, facilitated back-channel discussions between Washington and Tehran. The central sticking points: Iran’s evolving nuclear program and control over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes on any given day. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were both involved in mediating those conversations...