US President Donald Trump said on Saturday, September 26, that he had rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and pause fighting across the Middle East within seven days. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he said the terms were unacceptable. His statement turned an earlier report of a private rejection into a public position on a plan that could affect a crucial energy route.
Iran presented the initiative during the United Nations General Assembly in New York and sent it to Washington through Qatari mediators, according to Reuters. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that, if agreed conditions were met, normal passage through the strait could resume within a week. The proposal also envisaged a pause in regional hostilities and further talks between the two countries.
According to the Associated Press, Iran sought an end to the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, relief from sanctions on Iranian oil sales and a ceasefire that would include Lebanon. Tehran also proposed resuming discussions about its nuclear programme. These were demands attached to the offer, not steps Washington had accepted or actions that had begun.
Trump said Iran wanted a deal because it was losing and needed shipping through the waterway restored. The United States has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports, while Iranian threats and attacks on vessels have sharply reduced traffic through Hormuz since US and Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28. Washington and Tehran have held indirect discussions, but the war has continued through periods of fighting and attempted diplomacy.
The strait connects Gulf producers to global markets. Before the war, about one fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passed through it, according to the BBC and Al Jazeera. Disrupted shipping has therefore carried consequences beyond the region. The rejection leaves the route's reopening uncertain even as the conflict continues to affect energy supplies and the wider economy.
A US official had described mediated discussions as positive before Trump publicly rejected this proposal, Reuters reported. Araqchi had said broader negotiations could follow if the United States accepted the plan, but a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran would not make concessions on its nuclear programme. Neither side has announced an agreed timetable for reopening the strait, and any further progress now depends on new terms being accepted through the mediators.
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