The choice to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “rests with the United States,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday, indicating shipping through the critical waterway could resume within days once a deal is reached.
“If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, and normal maritime passage restored within seven days,” Araghchi told reporters. “The choice now rests with the United States.”
He said a “concrete seven-day plan” had been conveyed to the U.S. through Qatar, after indirect talks through mediators were held on the sidelines of this week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“The seven day timeline starts as soon as the United States accepts this plan,” he added. “If they accept this plan tomorrow, the seven days will start from tomorrow. There are certain actions to be taken by the United States. And we believe that these actions can be taken in four or five days.”
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Iran offers new proposal to reopen Strait of Hormuz
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Araghchi said that the actions required by the U.S. in their proposal were already agreed to in the June Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries that laid out plans for a temporary ceasefire. That agreement, signed in June, collapsed within days after fresh strikes were exchanged.
“They fall already under the commitments of the United States, so we don’t see any difficulty to implement them,” he said.
One of the conditions of the plan is for the U.S. to accept a maritime transit route through the Strait of Hormuz that has been agreed upon by Iran and Oman, Araghchi said Thursday.
A U.S. official said the Trump Administration is having positive and constructive discussions through the mediators but that they were not in any hurry to reach an agreement.
“The United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz, so we are not in a rush,” the U.S. official said. “Over the last 48 hours, nearly 40 million barrels of oil have transited the Strait.”
Early Saturday, President Donald Trump posted an image to Truth Social of the Strait of Hormuz labelled the “Trump Strait.”
Earlier this week, he had said he was still considering whether to “annihilate” Iran or make a deal.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that resolving the Hormuz issue “is possible through negotiations, not the use of force,” but warned that his country does not “trust” talks with Washington.
Trump has repeatedly said that the goal of attacking Iran was to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon. Soon after the war started, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which some 20% of the world’s oil flowed before the conflict, sending shock waves through the world economy.
Polls show Democrats with an advantage heading into the November contests. The latest NBC News Decision Desk Poll found 31% of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of the Iran war, while 69% disapproved.
Pezeshkian on Thursday suggested his government was willing to make a deal with the U.S. to end the war before Americans head to the polls this November.
“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Pezeshkian said in a brief meeting with NBC News and other news organizations, two days after Trump said that he believed the Iranian regime would not make a deal to settle the conflict until after November’s elections.
“I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” Trump said. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.”
The U.S. this week announced it would put sanctions on any global companies doing business with Iranian airlines, with the aim of grounding Iran’s entire civil fleet worldwide.
Iraq said Saturday that it was engaging with the U.S. in an effort to restore humanitarian flights to and from Iran, after Iranian airlines were barred from neighboring countries in response to the sanctions.
Efforts were ongoing to “secure exemptions for certain Iraqi airports from these measures” in order to enable “the resumption of flights for humanitarian reasons, such as medical treatment, education, religious pilgrimages, and the interests of civilians,” the Iraqi prime minister’s office said.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that flights had also been shut down to Oman, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
