By Uzair Saleem — SCN News
WASHINGTON — Iran said on Sunday that diplomacy remained the only viable route out of its conflict with the United States and Israel, refusing to withdraw its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz even after President Donald Trump publicly rejected Tehran’s seven-day peace proposal and argued that mounting economic pressure had left Iran desperate for an agreement.
The Iranian response leaves an important diplomatic opening behind what initially appeared to be a definitive American rejection. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had heard Trump’s public comments but had not yet received Washington’s formal position through the mediators carrying messages between the two governments. Iran would wait for that response before deciding its next move, while maintaining that reopening Hormuz remained conditional on the terms Tehran had already communicated.
That distinction has turned the latest U.S.-Iran confrontation into a test of whether Trump’s public rejection represents the end of the proposal or another stage in bargaining over its terms. Tehran is not offering to reopen the waterway unconditionally, and Washington is not accepting Iran’s proposed sequencing. But neither side has formally dismantled the indirect diplomatic channel that produced the proposal in the first place.
Iran’s position is now built around two messages that appear contradictory but are central to its strategy: Tehran says it will not surrender its negotiating leverage, but it also does not want the conflict resolved militarily. Araghchi said Iran’s conditions were clear and that any movement toward reopening Hormuz depended on them being met, while arguing that only a negotiated settlement could break the current deadlock.
The proposal developed during intense diplomacy surrounding the UN General Assembly in New York. Iranian officials used meetings with regional and international governments to explain conditions approved by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, while intermediaries carried those terms to Washington. Under Tehran’s proposed framework, an agreement would start a seven-day countdown toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz and stopping regional fighting, after which the sides could enter wider negotiations on mutually agreed issues.
Trump rejected that formula on Saturday. Speaking at the White House, he portrayed Iran’s offer as evidence that U.S. economic and military pressure was working, arguing that Tehran wanted the strait reopened because it was suffering badly. Washington has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports while sanctions and military pressure have further constrained an economy already weakened by months of conflict.
Iran’s response on Sunday challenged Trump’s interpretation without abandoning negotiations. Tehran says willingness to negotiate should not be confused with willingness to concede its principal demands, particularly while the United States maintains military and economic pressure. That leaves the two governments divided less over whether diplomacy should eventually occur than over who must make the first meaningful concession.
Hormuz has become the centre of that disagreement because it gives Iran leverage extending far beyond the battlefield. The narrow waterway normally carries a major share of globally traded oil and gas, connecting Gulf producers with markets in Asia and elsewhere. The dramatic reduction in normal shipping since the war began has affected energy markets, transport costs and the wider global economy, giving governments outside the conflict a direct interest in securing an agreement.
That sequencing problem is now more important than the headline disagreement over the seven-day plan. Both governments can identify elements of a potential settlement, including reopening Hormuz and eventually returning to negotiations, but each wants the other to demonstrate compliance first. Tehran wants tangible U.S. steps before giving up its most powerful economic bargaining instrument, while Trump wants Iran to reopen the strait without Washington first surrendering the pressure that he believes created Tehran’s willingness to negotiate.
The unusual element on Sunday was Araghchi’s insistence that Iran still had not received an official American rejection through intermediaries. Trump’s statement was unambiguous in public, but Tehran said the governments facilitating indirect contacts had not yet transmitted Washington’s definitive position. Iranian officials said Trump had made contradictory statements previously and that they would base their formal response on what mediators eventually communicated.
That keeps Qatar and other intermediaries central to the next stage. Iran announced during UNGA81 that its proposal had been passed to Washington through Qatari mediation, continuing a diplomatic process in which regional states have attempted to bridge differences that direct U.S.-Iranian negotiations have been unable to resolve.
Iran’s diplomatic push in New York was considerably broader than the Hormuz proposal itself. President Masoud Pezeshkian met a series of heads of government and international officials during the General Assembly, while Araghchi held his own discussions with foreign ministers and mediators. Pezeshkian returned to Tehran after using his UN address and interviews to combine resistance to American pressure with repeated declarations that Iran remained prepared for diplomacy.
That dual message is becoming the defining feature of Tehran’s post-UNGA strategy. Pezeshkian told the General Assembly that Iran could not be forced to surrender and rejected Trump’s threats, but he simultaneously argued that negotiation remained possible. His government is now applying essentially the same formula to Hormuz: no unconditional reopening and no abandonment of Iranian demands, but no closure of the diplomatic channel either.
The nuclear issue demonstrates the limits of that flexibility. Iranian officials say broader negotiations could eventually include the nuclear programme if an initial agreement ends hostilities and addresses Hormuz, but Tehran has indicated that it will not surrender what it considers its nuclear rights. A senior Iranian official said Iran would not accept demands to abandon uranium enrichment or ship its highly enriched uranium abroad simply in exchange for Washington accepting the current peace proposal.
Trump has made preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon a central U.S. objective. Tehran maintains that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, and Pezeshkian reiterated that position during his New York visit while saying Iran was prepared to discuss its programme. The unresolved question is whether Washington would accept negotiations that preserve some Iranian enrichment or insist on restrictions Tehran considers incompatible with its sovereign rights.
That dispute means reopening Hormuz would be the beginning of a settlement rather than the settlement itself. Even if mediators bridge the immediate differences over the strait, Washington and Tehran would still have to negotiate the nuclear programme, sanctions, Iran’s regional relationships, U.S. military pressure and mechanisms for preventing another collapse of a ceasefire.
The regional battlefield makes those negotiations harder. Iran’s conflict with the United States and Israel has become intertwined with fighting involving the Houthis and Saudi Arabia as well as tensions elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran’s proposal reportedly sought a wider cessation of hostilities, meaning implementation would depend on developments beyond the direct Washington-Tehran confrontation.
Saudi Arabia has consequently become an increasingly important part of the diplomatic equation. Iranian officials have engaged Riyadh over Hormuz because Saudi energy exports and regional security are directly affected by instability around the waterway. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is confronting Houthi attacks and has used the UN General Assembly to call for international condemnation of Houthi actions against the kingdom and in Yemen.
The overlapping crises create both pressure for diplomacy and obstacles to it. Gulf governments want predictable shipping and energy markets, but regional attacks can rapidly trigger retaliation and undermine negotiations taking place through diplomatic intermediaries. A Hormuz agreement therefore has to survive not merely disagreement between Washington and Tehran but a wider regional security environment in which several actors retain the ability to escalate.
Iran’s decision to continue advocating diplomacy after Trump’s rejection appears designed partly to shift responsibility for the next move toward Washington. Tehran can argue that it presented a concrete mechanism for reopening the strait, communicated its conditions through mediators and remains willing to negotiate. Trump, conversely, can argue that the proposal demanded too much relief from U.S. pressure in exchange for Iran restoring navigation through a waterway Washington says should never have been restricted.
That competing narrative will matter internationally. China has already used the General Assembly to oppose unilateral military action and advocate political settlement of the conflict, while Russia on Sunday called for implementation of the earlier U.S.-Iran understanding mediated by Pakistan. Major energy importers have strong incentives to support any diplomatic mechanism capable of restoring reliable traffic through Hormuz.
The conflict is therefore entering a phase in which both sides are trying to demonstrate that the other is responsible for prolonging it. Washington portrays Tehran’s interest in a deal as evidence that pressure is succeeding. Tehran portrays its willingness to continue negotiating as evidence that a settlement remains available if Washington abandons coercion.
Neither interpretation resolves the fundamental bargaining problem. Iran does not want to reopen Hormuz first and then negotiate from a weaker position. Trump does not want to ease the blockade and military pressure first and then discover that Tehran has retained the ability to restrict the strait.
A simultaneous or tightly phased exchange may consequently be the only realistic bridge between the two positions. Such an arrangement could link specific Iranian steps toward restoring maritime traffic with corresponding American measures, reducing the risk that either government makes its principal concession without receiving something in return.
For now, however, Iran is refusing to rewrite its terms simply because Trump rejected them publicly. Tehran says it will wait for Washington’s formal response through mediators, keep its conditions in place and continue arguing that the war ultimately has no military solution.
That leaves the diplomatic process damaged but not dead. Trump has rejected Iran’s seven-day package, but Tehran has responded by keeping the offer, the mediators and the principle of negotiations alive while refusing to surrender control over its strongest bargaining asset. Hormuz has consequently become both the obstacle to a ceasefire and the leverage that may eventually force the two sides back toward one.