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“If Iran cannot trade, if Iran cannot live, no one will be able to trade or live. The Strait of Hormuz is the strait of our dignity and honour, and it will not be allowed for the country’s enemies to use this major logistical chokepoint while the Iranian people are deprived.”
Iran stood firm Sunday on its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, despite United States President Donald Trump’s rejection of the proposal that had created some optimism for breaking the Mideast war stalemate.
The waterway is key to the world’s energy supply and is now central to the conflict between Washington and Tehran, which was triggered nearly seven months ago with deadly strikes on Iran.
Iran’s plan called for a cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon, according to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and fulfilling conditions in the ceasefire deal that fell apart months ago.
That agreement, which dissolved during fighting over Hormuz, called for the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade.
“Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent upon these conditions being fulfilled. We will not back down from them,” Araghchi said on Sunday, state broadcaster IRIB reported.
“We have never closed the door to diplomacy or negotiations, but at the same time, we have never backed down from our rights.”
But Trump said on Saturday that he rejected the truce deal.
“They want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,” he told reporters. “They want to make a deal and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal too.”
Araghchi said on Sunday that the Iranians “saw the first reaction from the US president, but so far, nothing has been conveyed to us by the mediators”.
“We are waiting for the mediators to convey the definitive positions to us, and we will make a decision based on them,” the foreign minister added.
Washington and Tehran signed a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding (MoU) in June that aimed to end the war, to reopen the strait and to launch talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.
But the deal broke down shortly afterwards when Iran fired on commercial ships in Hormuz that it accused of deviating from its approved route through the waterway.
Iran requires ships to obtain authorisation before passage, citing security and sovereignty reasons.
Ships that refuse to comply are regularly targeted, while the United States sporadically bombs Iranian coastal areas in retaliation.
At the UN, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan complained that the “international community has been absent” and is failing to live up to the responsibility to keep the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab open.
“The kingdom rejects any party’s use of these vital passages as a tool for pressure, threat, or harm to the interests of states,” he said, stressing the waterways’ importance to global energy security.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said it had seized a US Remus 600 autonomous underwater vehicle operating in the Strait of Hormuz and which it said was conducting espionage, Reuters reports, citing state media.
The Guards said the vehicle had been captured using intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities and was being examined by Iranian specialists to recover its data.
A top Iranian general says the war with the US is now in its “critical and decisive” stage, Al Jazeera reports.
“The war is not over; we have won, but we must consolidate this victory, and the aggressor enemy, which has suffered severe blows, must still be ready to receive severe blows from the dear Iranian soldiers,” said Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of the army.
“We are proud to be the soldiers of a country that today stands against the embodied evil of the United States and the Zionist regime and has humiliated them,” he said at a military ceremony. “This is Iran, and it is not a place for their excesses and arrogance.”