Iran Proposes 7-Day Plan to Reopen Hormuz and Restart Nuclear Talks
Iran has proposed a seven-day timetable to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to start negotiations on its nuclear programme. The Guardian The Strait is the narrow shipping lane through which a large share of exported oil travels.
Iranian diplomats said they laid out the plan in a three-hour meeting in New York earlier this week with US envoy Steve Witkoff. They described the meeting as productive but said they doubted the United States would deliver. Tehran then took the proposal to China for endorsement and confirmed Oman was on board.
Under Iran's sequencing, Washington would act first. In the first four to five days, the United States would lift the naval blockade on Iran's oil ports, meaning US enforcement stopping Iran's oil shipments. Washington would also restore the waiver lifting sanctions on Iran's oil exports. Sanctions are penalties that restrict trade and finance, and a waiver is formal permission to exempt oil sales from them. Within the timetable period, the US would also lift freezes on Iranian assets and permit Iran to export its oil. A further US step would be to order Benjamin Netanyahu to end Israel's attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon to achieve a ceasefire on all fronts. A ceasefire is a halt to fighting.
Iran's reciprocal steps would fall on days six and seven. On the sixth day, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with ships using a new route designated by Oman and Iran. That route would go predominantly through Iranian waters. On the seventh day, negotiations would start on Iran's civil nuclear programme, including a protocol to allow UN nuclear inspectors back to examine damaged sites and the highly enriched uranium stockpile. Highly enriched uranium is uranium processed to high strength, usable for civilian power or, at higher levels, weapons.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the new proposal repackages and accelerates elements of the Iran-US memorandum of understanding signed by Trump in June. He said the conditions Iran asked the US to meet were already contained in the Islamabad agreement signed by the US president. The central acceleration is timing. The proposal moves the start of nuclear talks from 60 days in the June agreement to seven days.
The timetable would place the proposed reopening before the US midterm elections. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the midterm elections have never been a factor in Iranian thinking. Trump claimed Iran was waiting until after the midterm vote to offer a deal.
The routing arrangement has drawn concern from Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is concerned that the route deal is bilateral between Iran and Oman and not with Gulf states as joint signatories.
Earlier reporting covers months of on-and-off diplomacy around the same variables. The United States and Iran discussed a phased deal to reopen the Strait and end the US blockade, and held their first shuttle talks in months ahead of September 23, 2026. Reuters Shuttle talks mean the sides pass messages through mediators rather than meeting directly. Tehran was then reviewing the US response to proposals to lift the naval blockade and reopen the waterway, after conveying its latest proposal through mediators and submitting conditions for reopening to a US representative. Technical talks in Doha had focused on the Strait to secure a peace deal and restart shipping. An initial US-Iran agreement to end the war calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, or reduce its strength. Iran has accused Israel of violating the conditional ceasefire announced by President Trump by continuing its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
There were previous deadlines. Trump gave Iran 48 hours in March to fully reopen the Strait, then extended the deadline by 10 days to 6 April while saying talks were "going very well." By August, Trump signaled the sides were close and said a deal could come as early as Wednesday, as Iran and Oman inched toward an agreement on the waterway. Iran said the Strait cannot remain open while the US blockade continued. Trump said the waterway is fully open while confirming the blockade continued.
The broader context here is sequencing and enforceability. Tehran is asking Washington to unwind coercive instruments, blockade enforcement, sanctions waiver policy and asset freezes, before Hormuz traffic resumes and before inspectors return. Washington has previously preferred parallel or phased implementation tied to dilution of highly enriched uranium and verification of damaged sites. The inclusion of a Lebanon front, a China endorsement track, and an Oman-Iran routing protocol widens a Hormuz-for-blockade exchange into a multi-party compliance problem. The test is narrow. Who lifts what first, who verifies reopening, and whether Gulf littoral states accept a corridor they did not co-sign.
