Qalibaf says Hormuz stays shut until Washington meets seven June conditions

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament and the country's chief negotiator, said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until the United States meets seven conditions set out in the June memorandum of understanding reached in Islamabad. He said the period of dragging out the process and dictating one-sided demands was over. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking the same day to ambassadors in Tehran, said a plan Iran had already handed over could reopen the strait within seven days if Washington accepted it.

Qalibaf called the Islamic Republic's position completely clear and firm. Tehran has sent the list to the US government through Qatar, which is mediating, according to reports carried by IRNA and European wires. The seven items, as those reports summarise them, are an end to the US naval blockade of Iranian ports and vessels, a lift of the ban on Iranian oil exports, release of frozen Iranian assets, removal of sanctions imposed on the country, and a halt to military action against Iran and against its allies in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon. The public summary does not number cleanly to seven without splitting sanctions and the halt on strikes. The memorandum itself has not been published. Readers have the speaker's count and the wire summary, not the annex.

Araghchi's seven-day roadmap is a sequence, not a softer list. On his account, the United States would meet the conditions first. Iran would then reopen the strait after seven days and start talks on a comprehensive agreement. He said Iran had explained the conditions and tied them to commitments Washington would have to accept. He added that if the United States chose a military solution again, Iran was more prepared than before and would take whatever action it judged necessary to defend itself. That sentence keeps the threat next to the offer.

The strait is the outlet for oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE as well as Iran. A closure, or a de facto closure enforced by Iranian forces and a US blockade, is why crude and tanker insurance have been the market story of this war. Qalibaf is not announcing a new closure. He is refusing a reopening on terms other than the June text. The White House position, in the reporting around the Camp David meeting of cabinet principals on Friday, is that next steps in the Iran war and in the Saudi-Houthi fight were under discussion. Axios reported that session. No public US acceptance of the seven conditions followed over the weekend.

The gap between the two clocks is the story for shipowners. Araghchi's clock starts when Washington accepts. Qalibaf's clock does not start until the conditions are met. Acceptance and performance are different dates. A seven-day reopening after acceptance would still leave a week in which hulls do not move and insurers do not rewrite war-risk quotes. A reopening only after assets are released and strikes stop could be longer. Neither man put a date on the American decision.

Qatar's role is transmission. Sending a list via Doha is not the same as a round of talks in Doha. Qalibaf's tone, that one-sided demands are finished, is aimed at a US draft he says has been circulating since June. Araghchi's tone, that a plan exists and the strait could open in a week, is aimed at the ambassadors in the room and at the governments that buy the oil. Both can be true of the same file. One refuses partial deals. The other offers a short sequence if the full list is taken.

What would change the oil market is a written American reply, or an Iranian order to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy units in the strait. Neither was published on Monday. Until one of those appears, the operational state Qalibaf described remains the state: the strait stays shut, the June conditions stay the price of opening it, and the seven-day plan stays an offer waiting on a capital that spent Friday at Camp David talking about the war rather than signing the list.