Qalibaf says Hormuz stays shut until seven June conditions are met

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament, said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until seven conditions in the June memorandum with the United States are met. He said the period of dragging the process out and dictating one-sided demands was over. Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to ambassadors and diplomats in Tehran the same day, said a plan Tehran had presented could reopen the strait within seven days if the United States accepted it. He added that Iran was more prepared than before if Washington chose a military route again, and would take whatever action it judged necessary to defend itself.

Qalibaf described Iran's position as completely clear and firm. He tied the seven conditions to the June understanding, which Iranian accounts also call the Islamabad memorandum. Araghchi said the conditions had been explained and that they were commitments the United States would have to accept. A later report said Tehran had sent the list through Qatar, which has been a channel in the talks. The official speeches on Sunday did not read the seven items out.

A strait that is a price, not a symbol

Hormuz is the outlet for tankers leaving Saudi, Emirati, Kuwaiti, Iraqi and, when it is allowed, Iranian terminals. A closure is a statement about barrels that do not reach the Gulf of Oman. It is also a statement about insurance. War-risk premia on a hull that has to pass a closed strait are a second price, paid by the charterer even when a particular ship is waved through. Qalibaf's sentence sets the political condition for taking both prices off. He did not set a date. Araghchi's seven-day line is the only calendar anyone in Tehran offered on Sunday, and it starts only if Washington accepts the plan.

Reports of the list, carried on Monday by outlets summarising Iranian state copy, describe demands to end a naval blockade of Iranian ports and ships, to lift the ban on Iranian oil exports, to release frozen assets, to lift sanctions, and to stop military action against Iran and against allies including Hezbollah in Lebanon. That is a reporter's inventory of a list the speaker did not itemise in the remarks Reuters and IRNA led with. It is worth keeping the two apart. The verified demand is seven conditions, from the June memorandum, unmet. The inventory is what secondary copy says those conditions contain.

Two clocks

Qalibaf's clock has no numbers on it. The strait stays shut until the seven are met. Araghchi's clock has a seven-day face, and it runs only after acceptance. The two are compatible if the seven days are the time Washington would have to perform the conditions before Iranian forces stand aside for traffic. They are not compatible if one of them is a negotiating position and the other is an order to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. Sunday's texts do not say which officer has the pen.

The June memorandum is the document both men are pointing at. It is an interim understanding, not a treaty the US Senate has handled, and not a text the Iranian parliament has published as a statute. Qalibaf calling it the basis of a closure is a speaker using an unsigned framework as a lever. Araghchi offering a seven-day reopening is a foreign minister telling ambassadors there is a paper they can take home. The barrels stay where the navy that controls the strait says they stay, until one of those two clocks actually starts.