Iran: Hormuz Stays Closed Until Seven Conditions Are Met

Iran’s parliament speaker said Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the United States meets seven conditions Tehran has tied to the interim agreement both sides signed in June, hardening a closure that has already pushed oil prices to multi-year highs.

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said “the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is completely clear and firm, and the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened until our seven conditions, based on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, are met,” according to Oman Observer. He said Washington had recently relayed a new proposal through mediators but argued, in comments carried by the same outlet, that “the era of imposing unilateral demands and stalling negotiations is over.”

What Iran is demanding

The seven conditions trace back to the memorandum of understanding Iran and the United States signed in Islamabad in June, which opened a 60-day framework for ceasefire terms, sanctions relief and nuclear talks. Qalibaf’s office has not published the full list, but Iranian officials have previously described the core demands as a lift of the US naval blockade, the release of frozen Iranian funds, an exemption for Iranian crude exports from sanctions, and a halt to military pressure on all fronts, per Oman Observer.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has separately floated a narrower fix: a document now circulating among mediators would open a seven-day trust-building window meant to return both sides to an enhanced version of the June memorandum, including concrete steps on Iran’s nuclear program, according to The Jerusalem Post. Qalibaf’s statement suggests that offer has not moved Tehran off its public position.

The timing follows President Trump’s rejection of Iran’s own Hormuz reopening plan and the expulsion of an Iranian delegation from Washington-brokered talks this week, detailed in our earlier report. Both sides have spent the days since trading public conditions rather than closing the gap.

A closure with no clear end date

The strait, which normally carries roughly a fifth of global oil supply, has been effectively shut to commercial traffic since late September, with insurers pulling war-risk cover and shipping volumes collapsing to a fraction of normal levels. The disruption has already driven the record drop in Iran’s rial and a wave of tanker strikes documented in our Friday coverage, and it prompted the G7’s coordinated release of 100 million barrels from strategic reserves to blunt the price shock, reported here.

Qalibaf’s comments leave that market backdrop unresolved. Without a reopening timeline, insurers and shippers have little basis to restore the war-risk coverage that has kept tankers away from the strait since the fighting intensified.

Military posture unchanged

The diplomatic impasse comes as the Pentagon has moved a third carrier strike group and roughly 10,000 additional troops into the region, a buildup covered in our report Thursday. Iran has not signaled any reciprocal drawdown, and Qalibaf’s framing — conditions tied to a halt in “fighting on all fronts” — suggests Tehran views the US military posture as itself an obstacle to reopening talks, not merely a backdrop to them.

The nuclear track complicates the picture

Any deal built on the Islamabad memorandum also has to contend with the unresolved standoff over nuclear inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors voted 23-3 on September 9 to direct Director General Rafael Grossi to report Iran’s noncompliance with its safeguards agreement, the first such board action in two decades, according to the IAEA’s own chronology of events. The agency has said it could not verify the status of two nuclear-related sites it has been denied access to since strikes hit Iranian facilities last year, a dispute the IAEA subsequently referred toward the UN Security Council, per Arms Control Association reporting.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA has called the board’s resolution “dangerous and entirely counterproductive,” arguing that site access is “materially impossible” given the damage from prior strikes. That dispute sits outside the seven conditions Qalibaf listed Saturday, but any durable sanctions-relief deal will likely need to address it — meaning even a breakthrough on Hormuz would not by itself resolve the broader standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

For now, Tehran’s position is unchanged from the start of the week: the strait stays closed, and the next move is Washington’s.