Iranian negotiators were in Doha on Sunday for a third consecutive day of talks with Qatari mediators, working on a possible path out of the war with the United States and Israel even as a reported disagreement between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over timing hung over the diplomacy. The talks, described by an official briefed on the discussions, are aimed at reaching a deal that could end a conflict now in its eighth month, but no final agreement had been reached by Sunday, according to Iran’s foreign minister.
The Doha discussions followed more than 12 hours of talks on Friday between Iranian and Qatari envoys in Tehran, before the venue shifted to the Qatari capital on Saturday. The mediators have been in regular contact with Washington, the official said, and the talks are being coordinated through both direct and indirect channels. That structure — Qatar speaking to both sides, with the United States in close contact with the mediators — has become the main diplomatic track while fighting remains paused but unresolved.
At the same time, a separate report has sharpened attention on what happens after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Axios, citing one Israeli source and one United States source, reported that Netanyahu pressed Trump during a phone call on Saturday to resume military strikes against Iran immediately after the November 3 vote. Trump, according to the same report, wants to let negotiations play out for now, a position that Netanyahu is said to be concerned about. Trump himself confirmed only that he had spoken to Netanyahu and that they had discussed Iran, declining to share further details.
That distinction matters, and it shapes how this story should be read. The claim that Netanyahu urged immediate post-election strikes is sourced reporting, not a confirmed United States decision. No order to resume strikes had been given as of Monday, November 2, and senior American officials have publicly said the president has not decided whether to launch new attacks. What is confirmed is a difference in emphasis, as reported by multiple outlets: an Israeli leader arguing for a return to combat, and an American president saying diplomacy should be given more time, while keeping a military option open.
What the Doha talks are trying to settle
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the talks on Sunday as ongoing and progressing, with the purpose of continuing consultations with Qatari mediators. He said Tehran was prepared for both defence and diplomacy, a formulation that captures the dual track Iran has maintained throughout the recent phase of the conflict: negotiating while warning that it will respond forcefully to any new attack.
Araghchi also said discussions on a two-day proposal were continuing, but that no final conclusion had been reached and that progress depended on the United States addressing Iran’s questions. Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera, quoting Araghchi in an interview on Saturday, reported that Iranian and Qatari negotiators had developed a proposal under which the Strait of Hormuz could reopen within two days of a potential agreement with Washington. The strait, a narrow waterway through which a large share of the world’s seaborne oil passes, has been a central economic pressure point in the war, and its reopening would be a significant early signal of any deal holding.
Earlier reporting described an Iranian proposal, conveyed through Qatari intermediaries, for a seven-day sequence of confidence-building steps by both sides before broader peace terms were addressed. Subsequent accounts suggested that timetable had been shortened in negotiation. The details of any sequencing remain unconfirmed by the United States, and the existence of competing descriptions of the proposal — seven days in one account, two days in another — reflects the fact that the talks are being conducted through intermediaries, with each side’s account reaching the public in fragments.
What is clearer is the direction of travel in the American outreach. Vice President JD Vance sent a letter last week to Iran’s national security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, about the possibility of restarting negotiations, the highest-level American outreach to Tehran in several months. Rezaei disclosed on Saturday that he had received the letter, describing its tone as a positive change from the American side, while saying he had not yet responded. That exchange, alongside the Doha talks, suggests that both capitals are testing whether a negotiated pause can be turned into something more durable.
The reported Netanyahu-Trump split over timing
The Saturday phone call between Trump and Netanyahu is the second strand of the weekend story, and it is the one most sensitive to sourcing. According to Axios, Netanyahu pressed Trump to strike Iran immediately after the midterm elections, while Trump was eager to let negotiations play out. The Jerusalem Post, reporting the Axios account, noted that Trump confirmed a good conversation with Netanyahu on Sunday but declined to elaborate on its contents.
Trump’s own public comments on Saturday fit the diplomacy-first description, without confirming or denying the Axios account of Netanyahu’s urging. He said negotiations with Iran were going fine and that he was not in much of a hurry. He also said Tehran wanted a deal but was not very reliable, adding that it had made agreements and then backed out. That mix — optimism about talks, scepticism about Iranian follow-through, and no rush to decide — has been a recurring feature of Trump’s public posture on Iran.
Other reporting has added context about military preparations running alongside the diplomacy. The Jerusalem Post reported that some members of Trump’s team are shifting back towards attacking Iran after other methods have been tried to obtain Iranian concessions, and that the United States has increased its military presence in the region, sending more than 10 military transport aircraft to Israel over the past week, with reports of air-defence systems and interceptors moved to Israel and other Arab allies. Those movements, if confirmed, would be consistent with preparing an option without yet choosing to use it.
Separately, The Atlantic has been cited in reporting as noting that Trump has contemplated a renewal of hostilities aimed at forcing Iran to negotiate, with advisers saying a new round of attacks could come soon after Tuesday’s midterms. That, too, is advisers’ assessment as reported, not an announced decision. The through-line across these accounts is that a post-midterm military option is being discussed and prepared for, while the diplomatic track is still being given a chance to produce results.
Rubio: no decision yet, diplomacy preferred
Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave the clearest official statement of the American position on Saturday. Speaking while hosting foreign ministers of the Group of 20 major economies in Atlanta, Rubio said Trump has not decided whether to launch new strikes against Iran, but would prefer to resolve the conflict diplomatically. He declined to set a timeframe for the talks in Qatar, while noting that direct and indirect contacts with Iran were under way and, in his words, had never stopped.
Rubio added that Trump would prefer a diplomatic solution but expressed confidence that the United States would have the ability to act militarily if it needed to do so. That formulation — preference for diplomacy, confidence in a military fallback — is the official line against which the sourced reporting about Netanyahu’s urging should be measured. It does not rule out strikes after the midterms, and Trump himself has not ruled them out. It does rule out, for now, any claim that strikes have been ordered or that a decision to strike has been taken.
Trump has said the United States will not launch new attacks before the midterm vote. That pledge, made in the context of a campaign in which the war’s costs — including energy prices and the strain on American forces and allies — have featured prominently, sets a clear near-term boundary. What happens after Tuesday is, by Trump’s own account and Rubio’s, still undecided, and will depend in part on whether the Doha talks produce something the president regards as credible.
Iran’s warnings and preparations
Iran has responded to the prospect of renewed strikes with warnings that are deliberately broad. The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, issued a statement on Saturday ordering the armed forces to be prepared to respond to any attacks. The Iranian military later announced it was taking steps to improve its readiness. On Sunday, an Iranian army spokesman warned that any new war could last longer than the previous round of fighting and extend beyond the Middle East, and that Trump would not be able to dictate its timing or conditions for ending it.
Iran has repeatedly said it would respond to any new attacks by striking American and Israeli targets in neighbouring countries. That threat is aimed at both the United States and its Gulf allies, several of which host American forces and facilities, and it is one reason regional governments have been watching the Doha talks closely. A wider war, Iranian officials argue, would disrupt oil supplies further and draw in countries that have so far tried to stay on the diplomatic sidelines.
Rezaei, the Iranian security chief, added a further element on Saturday, saying Tehran was debating whether to lift its longstanding ban on nuclear weapons should hostilities resume, while stressing that no such decision had been taken. That remark should be read as a warning signal rather than a policy change: Iran’s leadership has historically maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceful, and the suggestion that the ban itself is under debate is a way of raising the perceived stakes of a return to war without committing to a new course.
For neighbouring governments, the practical concern is more immediate: airspace, shipping, energy infrastructure and American bases in the Gulf would all be affected by a renewed conflict, and several Gulf states have urged restraint while supporting Qatar’s mediation. Their interest in a deal is not abstract; it is about keeping trade routes open and avoiding a conflict that could spread across a region already strained by eight months of war.
Why the midterms matter to the timing
The November 3 midterm elections are not a formal deadline in the Iran negotiations, but they have become a political marker in American discussions of the war. Trump launched the war alongside Israel in February, and the conflict’s costs — in energy prices, in military deployments, and in domestic political debate — have become part of the midterm campaign. Both parties have used the war to make broader arguments about competence, cost of living and American priorities.
That political context helps explain why the Axios report about Netanyahu pressing for strikes immediately after the vote has attracted so much attention. If strikes were to resume the day after the election, the timing would be read, fairly or not, as a decision deferred for electoral reasons rather than taken on its military or diplomatic merits. Trump has denied that framing by saying he is not in a hurry and that talks are going fine, but the proximity of the election to any post-vote decision will inevitably shape how that decision is interpreted.
The campaign context also connects this story to the domestic election coverage. USN has followed the closing days of the midterm campaign, including the exchanges between Trump and former President Barack Obama on the trail in the final days before the vote, in Trump and Obama trade blows on the trail five days before the midterms. The Iran question sits alongside those domestic arguments, not apart from them, because voters are being asked to judge the president’s foreign policy as well as his domestic record.
What to watch next
Three signals will matter most in the coming days. The first is whether the Doha talks produce a concrete, publicly acknowledged step — such as an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz, a prisoner or de-escalation measure, or a timetable for direct talks — that would give both sides a reason to keep negotiating after the midterms. A vague commitment to keep talking, without a tangible step, is less likely to hold off pressure for military action.
The second is what Trump says, and does, after Tuesday. A decision to keep negotiating, to set a deadline for talks, or to authorise strikes will each send a different signal to Tehran, to Israel, and to Gulf allies. The president’s own comments after the election, and any statement from Rubio or the White House, will be more authoritative than sourced reports about private calls, and should be weighted accordingly.
The third is Iran’s behaviour on the ground: whether its forces remain in a defensive posture, whether shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is affected, and whether its rhetoric hardens or softens after the American vote. A period of quiet after Tuesday would suggest the diplomatic track still has room; a rapid escalation in threats or incidents would suggest the opposite.
As of Monday, November 2, none of those post-election outcomes has been decided. Talks are continuing in Doha, a reported Israeli push for immediate post-midterm strikes has not been confirmed as American policy, and the American secretary of state says the president has not decided and prefers diplomacy. That is the state of play: diplomacy in progress, a military option in preparation, and a decision deferred until after Americans vote.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from The Economic Times, The Jerusalem Post and Business Today.