Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said this week that the country’s leaders had submitted to the U.S. a seven-day plan to end hostilities.
Araghchi, who mentioned the plan while speaking to reporters in a briefing at New York’s United Nations General Assembly Thursday, said Tehran is ready to negotiate a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a cessation of hostilities, which have been going on and off since February.
“We have introduced a plan to the United States through the intermediators that if certain conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz would be open on the end of the seventh day, and talks would restart,” Araghchi said.
The seven-day proposal resembles a previous agreement struck between the U.S. and Iran in June, and was communicated through conflict mediators. Tehran’s new proposition aims to fast-track negotiations and end the conflict, which has now stretched on for more than six months.
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A U.S. official confirmed to The Washington Sun the Trump administration is “having positive and constructive discussions through the mediators,” while arguing that the U.S. has a lot of leverage over Iran.
“The United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz, so we are not in a rush. Over the last 48 hours, nearly 40 million barrels of oil have transited the Strait,” the official said.
The June proposal was short-lived, as both sides accused one another of violating parts of the agreement, and came as both nations’ heads of state delivered aggressive speeches during U.N. interventions.
The plan would also include possible talks about Iran’s nuclear program, Al Jazeera reported, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited as a major reason as to why the war began in the first place.
“Will a deal be made with Iran?” President Trump said on Tuesday, “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”
In an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian defended his country’s posture.
“We did not choose war; the war was imposed on us,” Pezeshkian said on Thursday. “We’re seeking an agreement if the counterpart agrees to it.”
Iran’s seven-day sequence would begin with a halt to hostilities across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, alongside the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, the removal of sanctions on Iranian oil exports and the release of at least $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
If those conditions are met, Tehran says it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the seventh day, after which the U.S. and Iran would resume negotiations over a longer-term agreement, including Tehran’s nuclear program.
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