Iran Presents Plan to End War and Reopen Hormuz in Seven Days

Iran has handed the United States a proposal aimed at ending the war between them and reopening the Strait of Hormuz in seven days, its foreign minister said in New York. Abbas Araghchi, who is in the United States for the UN General Assembly, told news organizations including The New York Times and The Guardian that the waterway would be opened and negotiations would begin within a week if certain conditions were satisfied. The Japanese news agency Kyodo was the first to report the plan on Tuesday, citing a senior Iranian official. Iranian media outlets later denied Kyodo's report, and authorities in Tehran have not made their position clear. Araghchi also met on Tuesday with Steve Witkoff, an envoy for US President Donald Trump. Iran had previously set seven conditions for ending the war and reopening the strait. According to Araghchi, as quoted by The New York Times, the latest proposal would require a seven-day pause in all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon. It would also call for the release of frozen Iranian assets estimated to be worth at least $12 billion, the removal of sanctions on Iranian oil, and an end to the US naval blockade of Iran. Araghchi said he was waiting for a response from Washington and maintained that China supported the plan. Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting the United States this week, where he is meeting with Trump for talks. Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of Iran's military, told AFP in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that ending hostilities in Yemen was also among Tehran's demands. The United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June that was meant to end the war, reopen the strait, and start talks on Iran's nuclear program. But the deal fell apart shortly afterward, when Iran fired on commercial ships in Hormuz that it accused of leaving the approved route through the waterway. Iran requires ships to obtain authorization before passage, citing security and sovereignty reasons. Vessels that refuse to comply are regularly targeted, while the United States sporadically bombs Iranian coastal areas in retaliation.