From Atiq Sharif

July 1 (Reuters) - Most Gulf stock markets closed higher on Wednesday as negotiations between Iran and the United States to end the war continued.

US President Donald Trump said today that things between the United States and Iran are going well, and that the meetings held recently in Qatar went well.

A source familiar with the negotiations and an Iranian official said that the United States and Iran held technical talks in Doha as part of their efforts to reach an agreement on maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and to achieve a permanent ceasefire.

The source added that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and US envoy Steve Wittkopf met with the Qatari prime minister to pave the way for negotiations, but did not participate in the discussions themselves. Qatar and Pakistan are mediating between the two countries.

The Saudi market's benchmark index rose 0.5 percent, with shares of National Bank of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's largest bank, climbing 0.8 percent.

Shares of Saudi Aramco, the major oil company, were unchanged at the end of trading.

Tanker traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz has begun to recover, with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance saying that oil flows through the strait have returned to pre-war levels.

Dubai's main index rose 0.9 percent, with shares of Emirates NBD, the country's largest bank, climbing 1.6 percent.

In Abu Dhabi, the index fell 0.2 percent.

Preliminary ship-tracking data from Kpler and Vortexa showed that the UAE raised its exports of crude oil and condensates to a record high in June, weeks after withdrawing from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The index in Qatar closed up 0.5 percent.

The indices in Oman and Kuwait rose 0.7 percent and 0.2 percent respectively, while the index in Bahrain fell 0.1 percent.

Outside the Gulf region, Egypt's blue-chip index rose 0.1 percent.