Tehran Awaits Washington's Formal Answer After Trump Rejects Hormuz Plan
Iran will wait for an official American response through mediators before deciding its next step, its foreign minister said on Telegram, accusing the president of inconsistency: he “has made many good statements, as well as many contradictory ones, which unfortunately we hear frequently”. “We are waiting for the mediators to convey the definitive views to us,” Abbas Araghchi said. Oman, the mediator, urged all parties to keep talking.
A rejection delivered to reporters is not a rejection delivered through a mediator, and Tehran is using the gap. Mr Araghchi’s formulation keeps the proposal technically alive while conceding nothing: “only a negotiated solution can get them out of this deadlock. That is our position.” He restated that reopening the waterway depends on Iran’s conditions being met, which is the sequencing dispute in one sentence — Iran wants relief before it gives up its leverage, Washington wants the strait open before it offers relief. The armed forces spoke in a different register, their spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi warning that “Americans dream of interfering in the Strait of Hormuz, and if they interfere in the Strait of Hormuz, they will be slapped”. Around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas normally passes through a channel effectively shut since February. Watch for an answer conveyed through Muscat rather than a microphone.