Iran is awaiting an official response from the United States to a proposal it submitted to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days once a set of conditions is met. Iranian officials are stressing the priority of resuming negotiations with Washington while preparing for a military response if attacks resume, after US President Donald Trump announced his rejection of the Iranian plan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi delivered the proposal to Washington through the Qatari mediator. The plan is based on an understanding reached in June aimed at ending the conflict and securing navigation. Tehran is demanding an immediate cessation of fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon, as well as the release of its frozen funds and the cancellation of all economic sanctions imposed on it.
Trump said the economic pressure imposed on Iran had driven it to seek an agreement allowing the strait to be reopened. The US president said Washington had transported huge quantities of oil through the waterway the previous night, as he announced his rejection of the proposal submitted by Tehran.
Iran's conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global oil and gas production passes, has been a key focus of the conflict since the war began with US and Israeli strikes on 28 February. Iran closed the strait in response to the US naval blockade imposed on its ports, making navigation security and energy supplies central issues in the ongoing diplomatic contacts.
Araghchi said his country was balancing continued negotiations against the option of a military response if it faced new aggression, arguing that a negotiated solution was the way to address the global energy security crisis. He made the comments about talks he held in the United States on the sidelines of United Nations meetings, according to a statement issued by Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday.
The Iranian minister added that Tehran was awaiting an official response from Washington through mediators in Qatar and Pakistan before deciding its next step. He said his country had seen Trump's statements rejecting the proposal, but kept the door to communication open, stressing that Iran's decision would be based on the response formally conveyed by the mediators. Araghchi said: “We have not yet received a response from the mediators.
Of course, we are hearing positive and contradictory statements from the US president. We are awaiting the decisive response through the mediators, and will make our decision based on the response we receive.” He also stressed, according to the official IRNA news agency, that Tehran remained committed to negotiations and did not want to abandon that option.
Araghchi said Iran wanted a solution that would guarantee, in his words, the dignity, justice and legitimate rights of the Iranian people, without backing down from the conditions it had put forward. This comes amid concerns that diplomatic efforts may falter and military escalation may return, as the declared US position differs from Tehran's wait for an official answer through mediation channels.
Mediators push for a negotiated formula
Masaa Allah Shams al-Waezin, head of the Iranian Journalists' Syndicate, said the US State Department must provide an official response to the proposal, either directly through negotiations or via mediators. He added that the Qatari mediator was making intensive efforts to bring the two sides' positions closer on implementing reciprocal commitments, expressing confidence that the efforts would succeed and predicting that the coming days would be decisive.
Axios quoted a US official and two regional sources as saying that Qatari mediators were continuing shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Tehran in an effort to reach an agreement. The website said the mediators had discussed Iran's original proposal with both sides and then presented them with a compromise formula for review as part of efforts to narrow the existing gaps.
Axios added that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had held a new round of indirect negotiations with Araghchi in New York, with Qatari officials participating in relaying messages between the two sides. The Iranian minister briefed Witkoff and Kushner on Tehran's conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and resuming talks related to Iran's nuclear programme.
Former Iranian diplomat Hadi Afqahi said the importance of the negotiations lay not only in their subject but also in their being held at the United Nations headquarters. He said the Qatari and Pakistani mediators were keen to keep the talks going and prevent their collapse in order to reach a settlement, adding that the two sides had no option but to return to the negotiating table.
Afqahi said the Iranian side understood that Trump's rejection of the proposal could be part of a US attempt to secure additional gains during the negotiations. He predicted that the diplomatic track would ultimately prevail despite continuing disagreements and conflicting messages from the parties involved in the talks.
Conflicting expectations over next round of negotiations
Axios quoted two regional sources as expecting a new round of indirect dialogue between the United States and Iran to begin on Monday, while the two sides' ability to narrow their differences remained uncertain. IRNA, meanwhile, quoted a source close to the Iranian delegation in New York as saying that there were “no plans for a new round of negotiations with the US side”.
Alongside the diplomatic track, a source close to the negotiating team told the Fars news agency that Iran intended to confront US and Israeli pressure, pledging not to submit to policies of diktat or military threats aimed at extracting concessions on open strategic and military issues, in his words.
The Tasnim news agency quoted the Iranian armed forces' senior adviser to the commander-in-chief as saying that the Americans' departure from the region was “inevitable”. He said Washington had failed to achieve results commensurate with its military spending over many years. The military official ruled out any US role in regional security arrangements and said Tehran would help shape the future security order.
The Iranian adviser said managing the Strait of Hormuz was a strategic tool that could break the US naval blockade of Iranian ports. He linked developments in the strait to the latest developments in Bab al-Mandab, describing Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, taking control of it as another step in what he called a series of US strategic failures in the region.
The Wall Street Journal had reported that Trump was considering resuming strikes on Iran after the congressional midterm elections scheduled for 3 November. It added that the options under consideration included tightening the naval blockade of Iranian ports and imposing new economic sanctions.
The United States has not carried out strikes on Iran since 1 September, despite oil tankers coming under attack in the Strait of Hormuz afterwards.
