Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has met with Qatari mediators in New York to discuss a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while a United States official said there would be no agreement to end the war unless Tehran’s nuclear programme is addressed. Araghchi told Iranian state media on Monday that the Qatari mediators would carry the ideas discussed at the meeting to the US and that he hoped to receive Washington’s final response by Tuesday. He described the meetings as part of an existing exchange of messages through Qatari and Pakistani mediators, which he said had taken on “a more serious form” since Iran submitted its proposal.
The Iranian plan, announced on Friday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, calls on the US to release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions and end its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Araghchi said those steps could be completed within four or five days, allowing the strait to reopen and negotiations on a final agreement, including on Iran’s nuclear programme, to begin by the seventh day. US President Donald Trump, however, rejected the proposal on Saturday, calling it “unacceptable”.
The US official, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said indirect discussions were continuing. The talks were “positive and constructive”, the official said, but stressed there would be no agreement unless Iran’s nuclear programme is addressed. The official said Trump is willing to relieve sanctions and release Iran’s frozen funds in exchange for progress on nuclear issues.
The official also expressed scepticism of Iran, saying it had broken the memorandum of understanding signed in June by firing on commercial vessels. Tehran denies the accusation and says it was Washington that broke its commitments by failing to halt Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and by seeking to establish alternate shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had closed the strait, which handled roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies before the war, shortly after the US and Israel launched their offensive on February 28.
Iranian attacks on vessels since have sharply curtailed shipping, and oil prices have risen above $100 a barrel. Even so, crude exports from major Middle East producers rebounded in September to 12.8 million barrels per day, their highest level since the war began, the news agency reported, citing data from the maritime intelligence firm Kpler. That is still well below the 18.8 million bpd exported in February.
Some ships have used the US military-supervised route hugging the coast of Oman, travelling at night with tracking systems off and offloading oil to tankers outside the strait. Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, said on Saturday that American forces had assisted 2,000 transits and more than 1 billion barrels of oil in recent months. The US has also imposed a blockade on Iranian ports and threatened secondary sanctions against airports and companies that do business with Iranian airlines.
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