Iran Says Strait of Hormuz Stays Closed Until U.S. Meets Seven Conditions

TEHRAN, Oct. 4 (TodayViralUSA) — Iran will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed until the United States accepts a seven-condition plan to reopen the waterway, the country’s top negotiator said Sunday, hardening Tehran’s stance over a chokepoint that once carried about one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, told the state-linked Nournews agency that Washington had floated proposals through a mediator after answering Iran’s earlier diplomatic offer. He said Tehran’s position remains “clear and definite” and that the strait “will not open until our seven conditions based on the Islamabad memorandum are met.”

Ghalibaf said the era of “wasting time and dictating unilateral demands is over,” adding that Iran would “both fight and negotiate” and was neither “excited” nor “intimidated” by the latest U.S. ideas. He also warned that Iran would confront adversaries “with new surprises” on the military battlefield.

Diplomacy and military readiness

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign ambassadors in Tehran, said Iran is “serious about finding diplomatic solutions just as we are serious about defending ourselves.” He said Tehran had spelled out its terms for reopening the strait and hoped Washington would choose diplomacy. If the United States resumes military action, he warned, Iran is “more prepared than before.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said reopening Hormuz is Tehran’s principal near-term goal, while U.S. officials have continued to emphasize nuclear talks. “We are at this stage mainly focusing on the strait,” Baghaei said, according to reporting from Al Jazeera.

The waterway has been largely disrupted for more than seven months, since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28. President Donald Trump last week rejected an Iranian roadmap for reopening the strait, and last month threatened to “annihilate” Iran in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Shipping insurers and energy traders have already priced elevated war-risk into Gulf voyages. Even temporary or partial closures can move crude markets because large oil and liquefied natural gas cargoes leaving the Persian Gulf have few practical alternatives to Hormuz.

Iranian officials have framed the Islamabad memorandum — reached in June — as the baseline for any reopening timeline. They have not publicly detailed every element of the seven conditions in Sunday’s remarks, but have cast fulfillment of that package as non-negotiable before commercial traffic resumes under Tehran’s terms.

Washington has not issued a full public reply to Sunday’s comments. The dispute leaves one of the world’s most sensitive energy corridors closed pending a bargain neither side has yet sealed, even as both claim to prefer a diplomatic path.