Iran says it is breaking off talks to end war after U.S. and Israeli strikes

Iran said Monday that it was breaking off talks with the Trump administration to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz following an escalation of Israeli military action in Lebanon and renewed airstrikes around the Persian Gulf.

President Donald Trump, however, insisted that negotiations were ongoing. “Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote Monday in a social media post.

An Iranian official briefed on the talks told The Washington Post that negotiations were suspended because of Israel’s intensifying military attacks in Lebanon. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Iranian and U.S. negotiators had signaled progress on finalizing a memorandum of understanding last week, but the official said Monday that he was less hopeful of an imminent deal.

In addition to Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, the official said last-minute changes to the terms of the deal by U.S. negotiators over the weekend also frustrated progress. The official said U.S. negotiators had not informed their Iranian counterparts of the new deal terms.

Tehran’s decision to pull back from the talks follows a recent exchange of U.S. and Iranian attacks in the Persian Gulf region and highlights the difficulty Trump is facing in bringing an end to an unpopular war that has caused economic disruption, including spiking energy prices, worldwide.

The president’s insistence that the talks were still on track seemed only to underscore the disconnect between the two sides, which have been exchanging written proposals through intermediaries.

U.S. military planners across several continents were on heightened alert for the potential expansion of hostilities, though preparations alone do not indicate strikes are imminent, according to people familiar with issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.

U.S. military officials in Europe and Africa raised their force protection measures as a proactive step in case fighting resumes in earnest, the people said.

Trump has insisted that the United States dealt Iran a resounding military defeat and that he would be able to impose his top demands, including an end to Iran’s nuclear program and the containment of its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Iran, however, has countered with its own steep demands, including the release of billions in frozen funds, and has shown a willingness to risk further American and Israeli military strikes, apparently counting on Trump’s reluctance to order a full resumption in hostilities.

A series of tit-for-tat attacks has threatened the talks in recent days.

The U.S. military said it struck Iranian radar and drone sites near the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, prompting Iran to retaliate Monday with missile fire into Kuwait.

Hostilities also escalated in Lebanon, with civilians fleeing southern parts of Beirut after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday he had ordered new strikes on Hezbollah strongholds there.

U.S. Central Command said its most recent strikes, carried out in the coastal city of Goruk and on Qeshm Island, targeted Iranian air defenses, a ground control station and two attack drones that it said posed clear threats to ships in regional waters. Its strikes came after Iran shot down a U.S. drone operating over international waters.

Both Goruk and Qeshm Island are strategic sites overlooking the strait, where Iran has sought to blockade most international shipping and the United States has been escorting commercial vessels through in defiance of Tehran’s closure.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had launched missiles from Khuzestan province in retaliation for what it said was a U.S. strike on a telecommunications tower on Sirik Island. The IRGC said that its targets “were destroyed” and warned that any repeated strike would draw a “completely different” response.

Kuwait’s military, posting Monday on X, said that it was “responding to hostile missile and drone threats” and that any sounds of explosions were the result of air defense systems intercepting Iranian attacks.

No casualties or damage were reported, according to local media, although civil aviation was disrupted, with diversions and holding patterns over parts of the Persian Gulf region.

Iran said it had targeted a U.S.-linked air base.

In Lebanon, Israel has intensified its attacks in recent weeks, killing dozens of people and issuing forced-displacement orders for two of the largest cities in the south. Hezbollah has stepped up strikes against Israeli forces, including with new-generation fiber-optic drones.

Iran, which insisted that the Lebanon conflict be included in the original ceasefire in April after Israel initially continued military operations there, had warned again Monday that violations there threatened the large ceasefire agreement with Washington.

“The ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts including in Lebanon,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X. “Violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.”

Later Monday, Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that Tehran was suspending the talks, and that Iran and allied militant groups were prepared to fully close the Strait of Hormuz and activate additional pressure points.

“Given the continuation of the crimes of the Zionist regime in Lebanon and considering that Lebanon was one of the preconditions for the ceasefire and that this ceasefire has now been violated on all fronts including Lebanon,” Tasnim posted on Telegram, the Iranian negotiating team was suspending “dialogues and exchange of texts through a mediator.”

Iran’s move marks an escalation in recent posturing by both sides as they seek to reach a new agreement.

But the back-and-forth of military strikes follow a pattern that has repeatedly tested the nominal truce since it took hold in April, as officials from both sides work to finalize a memorandum of understanding to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and open a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Vice President JD Vance said last week that the two sides remained “back and forth on a couple of language points” and that it was “hard to say exactly when, or if, the president’s going to sign the MOU.”

Among the core sticking points, officials said, are Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, among other senior officials, has said any deal would require Iran to turn over its nuclear fuel and commit that it would not pursue a nuclear weapon.

Skeptics of a deal, including some congressional Republicans, have said Iran cannot be trusted to abandon its nuclear program and have warned against the release of billions in frozen funds that Tehran has demanded as part of any agreement.

Trump has stepped in to review and tweak the latest proposals. He has played down the significance of the back-and-forth attacks, telling critics to “just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end.”

France has requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council over the expanding violence in Lebanon.

• Alex Horton and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.