TEHRAN — Iran is ready to carry out its plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in two days instead of seven if its conditions are accepted, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday.
Araghchi spoke on the sidelines of a meeting of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee. A senior Iranian diplomat has gone to Qatar to keep the talks moving, he said, after a Qatari delegation visited Tehran. His deputy was due back in Iran later Sunday.
No meeting with an American delegation has taken place, and none is planned, according to Araghchi. Iran is discussing its own proposal through intermediaries.
The plan Tehran first put forward would have reopened the strait over seven days. Qatar suggested cutting that to five days, and the version now under discussion would do it in two, Araghchi told Al Jazeera.
What Tehran Is Asking
The conditions, as Araghchi set them out, include lifting the sanctions imposed after the Islamabad memorandum collapsed, cutting the U.S. military presence in the region and restoring the oil waivers granted in June. Tehran also wants its frozen funds released, including money held in Qatar.
Iran is also seeking recognition of a shipping route through the strait that it discussed with Oman, with other routes closed, and an end to the war on all fronts, including Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.
“Reopening the Strait of Hormuz in accordance with our conditions paves the way for the resumption of negotiations with Washington regarding outstanding issues,”
Asked how the contacts were going, he was blunt about the gap that remains. “Whether we reach an agreement or not depends on answers to many questions that have yet to be provided,” he said.
Washington Pushes Back
In Manama, Bahrain, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Donald Blome warned Sunday that Iran could not be allowed to hold the region and the global economy hostage. The channels for negotiation remain open, Blome said, but the United States is also prepared to go in another direction, Al Jazeera reported.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has said the strait will stay closed and no talks will take place unless all seven of Tehran’s conditions are fulfilled. In a post on X, he warned that Iran would answer any attack with “devastating blows” using new weaponry.
Araghchi said Iran’s armed forces are ready, and stronger than in the previous two wars. “We are now fully prepared to defend ourselves, while at the same time remaining ready for diplomacy,” he said.
What happens next, he added, rests with Washington. “What course the Americans choose depends on their own rationality,” Araghchi said.
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