Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday that Tehran’s seven-step ceasefire offer could take effect within two days if Washington meets its conditions, putting the Strait of Hormuz at the center of renewed diplomacy.
Baghaei said the proposal's terms had not changed, but the time Iran says implementation would take has fallen from one week to two days. The plan links reopening the Strait of Hormuz with a return to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s stated demands include lifting the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, ending sanctions, a guarantee that strikes will end and a regional ceasefire, particularly in Lebanon. EconoTimes previously covered Iran’s conditional plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Al Jazeera reported that Qatar and Pakistan are helping facilitate indirect talks and that Iranian officials are in discussions with Qatari mediators. Baghaei’s remarks did not confirm that Washington had accepted the offer.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had given the government authority to speed up talks with the United States. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told IRNA in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, that Iran remained prepared for diplomacy as well as military confrontation.
U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations were “going fine.” In a Sunday interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), Trump said the war would end “very soon one way or the other,” with Tehran able to “make a deal or we’ll just end it.” Trump has also suggested the United States could strike Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, Al Jazeera reported.
