Pezeshkian Sets Blockade-Lift Precondition After Mojtaba Meeting

TEHRAN — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday introduced a new and significantly more restrictive precondition for any negotiation over reopening the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters in Tehran that the United States must lift its naval blockade of Iran’s southern coast before talks can begin, according to Voice of Emirates. The demand reverses the sequencing in the leaked US 14-point Memorandum of Understanding, which contemplates a 30-day phased reciprocity in which sanctions relief, blockade-easing and Iranian de-escalation steps unwind in parallel.

Pezeshkian disclosed the precondition at the same press appearance in which he confirmed he had recently held a 2.5-hour in-person meeting with the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei — the first on-the-record confirmation by a senior Iranian official that Mojtaba is alive and actively running the office, per Al Arabiya English. The pairing of the two disclosures — a visible blessing from the new Supreme Leader, followed minutes later by a hardened red line — suggests Tehran is moving to harden, not soften, its negotiating posture as Iran’s formal MoU response is expected to be delivered via Pakistani mediators in Islamabad today.

A first confirmation that Mojtaba is engaged

Pezeshkian’s account, as reported by Al Arabiya, described a single 2.5-hour session in which the president walked the new Supreme Leader through the state of negotiations with Washington and the parameters Iran was prepared to accept. Speculation about Mojtaba Khamenei’s status had circulated in Tehran and on Persian-language social media for days; until Thursday, no senior official had publicly placed him at a working meeting.

The disclosure matters less for what it says about Mojtaba’s health than for what it says about the political cover Pezeshkian is now operating with. By volunteering the meeting publicly — rather than letting it leak — the president signaled to Iran’s parliament, the IRGC and his domestic critics that whatever he says next about the US negotiation has been ratified at the top of the system.

The blockade-first demand

What Pezeshkian said next is the operative news. According to Voice of Emirates, the president stipulated that “the lifting of the naval blockade is a condition for the start” of any negotiation over Strait-of-Hormuz transit, framing the US Navy’s posture in the Gulf of Oman and northern Arabian Sea as a pressure tactic incompatible with a good-faith process.

That sequencing is not what the leaked MoU contemplates. As laid out in the foundational 14-point framework, Washington’s draft envisions a phased 30-day reciprocity track in which blockade-easing, sanctions relief and Iranian transit normalization unwind on a synchronized schedule, not as preconditions to one another. Pezeshkian’s formulation flips that: the US concedes first, then Iran sits down.

It also lands on top of the morning’s call between Pezeshkian and French President Emmanuel Macron, in which the Iranian president pressed Paris to convey to Washington that “trust” had to be re-established before sequencing could be discussed. The Mojtaba meeting appears to have hardened the line that the Macron call previewed.

Parliamentary fence around the president

The harder line is also being reinforced from Tehran’s parliament. Spokesman Mohammad Rezaei on Thursday publicly dismissed the leaked MoU as an “American wish list”, per The Times of Israel — a phrasing that puts a marker down for hardline factions and gives Pezeshkian’s negotiators a built-in domestic excuse to walk anything back. Rezaei’s comment also dovetails with the broader framing dispute over whether nuclear constraints are even on the table, which Iranian officials have insisted they are not.

Hormuz rules being written in parallel

While the diplomatic track moves toward Islamabad, Tehran is simultaneously institutionalizing control over the waterway it is supposedly negotiating about. CNN’s live coverage cites a document showing Iranian authorities issuing fresh transit rules for the Strait of Hormuz even as the MoU exchange proceeds — an extension of the permitting regime Tehran rolled out earlier this week. The practical effect is that whatever the MoU eventually says about “reopening” Hormuz, Iran is building the bureaucratic apparatus to be the entity that decides who passes.

Markets are pricing the opposite

Cross-asset markets on Thursday continued to price a deal trajectory that Tehran’s words contradict. Brent crude was holding above $99, the S&P 500 sat at a record, the Nikkei closed up 5.7% and gold ran to $4,706, according to Euronews, which described the tape as built on “hopes of reopening the Strait of Hormuz.” None of the morning’s Tehran signaling — the new precondition, the parliamentary “wish list” framing, the parallel transit rules — is in those prices.

The backdrop on the US side has not eased either. President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed a threat on Truth Social to bomb Iran “at a much higher level” if a deal does not land, language that Tehran officials have cited internally as evidence that any concession made before the blockade is lifted would be made under duress.

What to watch

Three things over the rest of Thursday:

• The formal MoU response in Islamabad. CNN reports Iran’s written reply is expected to be handed to Pakistani mediators today. Whether the blockade-first language Pezeshkian used in public also appears as a written precondition in the document is the single most important detail.
• Trump’s reaction. A Truth Social post hardening the bombing threat, or conversely an instruction to negotiators to treat the Pezeshkian line as opening positioning, will set the tone into Friday.
• Enforcement of the new transit rules. If Iran begins actually turning vessels back at the Strait under the freshly issued rules while the MoU is being read in Washington, the gap between market pricing and the situation on the water will close fast.

This is a developing story. America Strikes will update as the formal Iranian response is delivered and US officials respond.