Iran offers to reopen Strait of Hormuz within 7 days if US lifts blockade and ends sanctions

Iran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in a week. The condition: a US military withdrawal from Iranian waters and an end to sanctions.

Officials communicated the proposal through mediators. President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi were due to present Iran's conditions in New York on Wednesday, ahead of the UN General Assembly. No meeting between Iranian and US officials was expected.

The offer amounts to a ceasefire for one of the world's most trafficked maritime chokepoints. Traffic through the strait fell to four crossings in a single day at the crisis's lowest point. Iran's IRGC struck at least three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, warning of destruction for tankers it called in illegal transit.

The US has not responded. Iran did not name which sanctions it requires lifted or detail a mechanism for verifying compliance before reopening. The seven-day window starts only from the date Washington agrees to terms it has not acknowledged.

As recently as 21 September, a tanker was struck by a projectile during an inbound Hormuz transit, two days before the diplomatic offer became public.