Iran draws up terms to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as the war hits six months

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on 27 August that Tehran is writing a list of conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Mediators asked for the list. Ending the regional war, he said, is on it.

Rezaei told Al Manar that Iran and Oman have agreed a corridor that would run partly in Omani water and partly in Iranian water. Ships would use a marked central channel if the United States met Iran's terms. A senior Iranian source told Reuters the next day that the two countries were still working out the details, after the Revolutionary Guards had claimed a deal on traffic and revenue sharing.

An IRGC spokesman set three public tests on Wednesday: Washington must lift what Tehran calls a blockade of Iranian ports, pay compensation for war damage, and remove sanctions. Rezaei's later remarks did not walk those back.

How the strait closed

The United States and Israel began the bombing campaign on 28 February. Iran then threatened any vessel that crossed the strait without its say-so. Traffic that used to carry about one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas largely stopped. Ceasefire texts in April and June were supposed to put ships back through. They did not hold.

A June memorandum of understanding had Iran clearing mines and letting ships pass free of charge for 60 days while Washington lifted the blockade and eased sanctions. President Donald Trump later said the memorandum was "over" three weeks after it was signed. The two sides read the same paper as different grants of authority over the waterway.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was in Tehran on Thursday and wrote that he had pressed Iranian officials on freedom of navigation under international law. Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, also visited and left without a reported shift in Tehran's terms.

What Washington is saying

Trump has said the strait is open. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the United States is not talking with Iran and is focused on economic pressure until Tehran negotiates on terms Washington will accept. Those two sentences sit next to each other and do not resolve the traffic problem.

Oil prices dropped more than $2 a barrel on 26 August when Iran-Oman talks revived the idea of a corridor. The move was a bet on language, not on a pilot in the channel. IGL in Delhi raised CNG by Rs 3.89 a kilogram from 29 August and named Hormuz as the reason LNG has stayed expensive. That is one domestic price tag on a closed strait.

Before February the waterway was ordinary infrastructure. Tankers booked it as a default. Six months later it is a bargaining chip that Iran can hold only for as long as buyers can find other routes and as long as the Iranian economy can stand the same closure that gives it leverage.

The Oman channel

Oman has a coast on the strait and a habit of carrying messages. A corridor that splits the water between Muscat and Tehran would give both a claim on traffic and, if the Guards' earlier statement stands, on revenue. That second piece is the one Washington is least likely to accept, because it treats the strait as a toll rather than a passage.

Rezaei said the United States must take practical steps first. Iran would then open the strait. The sequence is the point. Tehran wants visible relief before ships move. Washington wants ships moving before relief. The June memorandum tried to run those steps at the same time and broke.

The list Rezaei promised has not been published. Until it is, the public terms remain the three the Guards named and the war-end clause Rezaei added. Mediators can carry paper. They cannot put a tanker through a channel that both navies still treat as a weapon.