Mohsen Rezaei told China's ambassador Zong Piyu in Tehran on Tuesday 11 August that the Strait of Hormuz reopens when the United States ends its war on Iran and its regional allies and releases Iran's blocked funds, and that Tehran has passed further conditions to Washington through intermediaries1. Rezaei runs the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the Iranian body that turns a negotiated text into state policy. He took it over on 9 August. This was his first public word on the strait since.
He also cut the mediators loose. The Iran-Oman transit arrangement "will have no impact" on the reopening decision, he said. That puts him at odds with his own foreign ministry, where Esmaeil Baqaei spent Monday 10 August naming the four areas Muscat and Tehran have agreed and ruling transit fees out. Abbas Araghchi's Hormuz draft has been waiting on Rezaei's council since 5 August and remains unsigned. He has gone beyond the six conditions his predecessor Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr published on 8 August, adding an end to the American naval blockade.
The mediators spent the same day describing a different negotiation. Pakistan's defence minister Khawaja Asif said things are "shaping up in favor of peace" on the strait, and a Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson called the Iran-Oman talks on reopening to some shipping advanced2. Neither names a text, a date or a mechanism. Rezaei names the council, the conditions and the man who has to meet them.
A charterer reading both accounts cannot price either, so optimism from Islamabad and Doha moves no war-risk rate. Tehran has now said in public, through the office that decides, that the shipping track is not the one that matters.
