Tehran wants the blockade lifted, the fleet gone and the war paid for before Hormuz reopens
Iran's national security chief has set out the conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz: an end to the naval blockade, a US withdrawal from the region, full compensation for war damage and the unconditional release of frozen assets.
Iran has finally written down what it wants in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and the list runs long. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who heads the country’s national security council, said on Saturday that the United States must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and pull its forces out of the region before anything returns to normal.
That is only the opening. Tehran also wants Washington to promise it will never threaten Iran again, to declare the war permanently over — including against Iran’s armed allies across the region — to compensate the country in full for war damage, to lift sanctions, and to release frozen Iranian assets without conditions.
No American administration would sign that overnight, which is rather the point. Iran and Oman had spent recent weeks sounding optimistic about an arrangement for managing the waterway, and Tehran has since worked hard to kill the idea that a deal means normal traffic the next morning. The 60-day window to settle the final terms closes in a little over a week, though it can be extended.
Why the strait matters this much
At its narrowest, Hormuz is barely 30 kilometres of water, and in normal times roughly a fifth of the world’s oil moves through it. Closing it is not a gesture. It is the difference between a quiet market and a price shock that reaches Portuguese forecourts within days.
Iran is under pressure of its own. Officials there have privately conceded that the blockade is pushing the economy towards collapse and that sanctions relief has stopped being a preference and become a necessity. A maximalist list is a bargaining position; it is also a way of postponing the harder conversation about what Tehran gives up.
For readers in Portugal, this stretch of sea shows up mostly as fuel prices and energy bills. A week ago Qatar had already drafted a proposal to unlock the passage and the White House was talking about an imminent reopening. Saturday’s list suggests that reading was, at best, premature.
Photo: Ivan Mlinaric / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
