Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has issued a fresh set of conditions that Washington must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can fully reopen, according to a statement carried by state broadcaster IRIB.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the council’s secretary, said on Saturday that the strait would remain closed until the United States ‘corrects its behaviour’. The remarks were published by IRIB, as reported by aljazeera.com.
The six conditions include an end to US threats against Iran and insults to what Zolghadr described as the country’s national and religious values. They also demand a permanent halt to attacks against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq.
Further demands cover the lifting of the US naval blockade, the withdrawal of US naval and air forces from around Iran, compensation for damage from what Zolghadr called two ‘imposed wars’, the lifting of sanctions, and the unconditional release of frozen Iranian assets.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also weighed in on Saturday. Spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi was quoted by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency as saying that reopening Hormuz depended on Washington accepting the conditions and was separate from negotiations between Iran and Oman.
‘Whenever the United States accepts Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will certainly be reopened,’ Mohebbi said.
The new list broadens the terms Tehran says must be met before the waterway can reopen, tying it to a more expansive set of political, military and economic demands than those in the June memorandum.
Most notably, the conditions explicitly include Palestine, Yemen and Iraq alongside Lebanon in the call for an end to attacks against Iran and its allies. They also demand an end to US threats and insults to Iran’s national and religious values.
The conditions further call for the withdrawal of US naval and air forces from around Iran, full compensation for damage from the two ‘imposed wars’, the lifting of sanctions and the unconditional release of frozen Iranian assets.
While some of these issues appeared in earlier proposals, the Reuters news agency reported that the June memorandum treated them as part of a reciprocal and phased process. Zolghadr is now presenting them as conditions Washington must meet before the strait can fully reopen.
That differs from Washington’s latest position. An unnamed US official told Reuters on Friday that the blockade of Iranian ports would be lifted once commercial shipping through Hormuz was restored ‘without impediments’, with US steps tied to Iran carrying out its commitments.
Meanwhile, President Masoud Pezeshkian has backed efforts to reach an agreement. Speaking at a news conference with journalists broadcast by IRIB, he said he believed ‘now is the best time for an agreement’.
‘There is cohesion, strength and unity in the country, and as far as I know, Iran is considered victorious and powerful in this war,’ he said.
Pezeshkian said Tehran and Washington should have established a mechanism for dealing with alleged violations of their earlier memorandum rather than allowing disputes to return to military confrontation.
‘We need to see how to resolve them now, if a solution is possible, which is currently being worked on in the Oman negotiations,’ he said, adding that he hoped Iran could move beyond the current state of ‘neither war nor peace’.