Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, then secretary of Iran's SNSC (Supreme National Security Council), set out six conditions on Saturday 8 August before Iran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz1. Washington must end its military action, lift the naval blockade, withdraw its forces, pay war damages, lift sanctions and release Iran's frozen assets. The council Zolghadr spoke for is the body that turns any agreed text into Iranian national policy, and he said it "will not retreat in war or negotiations".
Tehran has costed one of those items before. In May it told mediators it wanted $12bn in frozen assets held in Qatar released before any reopening, and refused to trade the money for what it called vague and illusory promises. The six conditions restate that demand as one line on a longer list. They also land after Washington had already answered a narrower Iranian proposal, rejecting the Majlis transit bill outright on 6 August.
Nothing on Zolghadr's list concerns pilotage, traffic separation or who inspects a hull. Each condition asks for something no shipping authority can grant, which places the reopening inside a war settlement rather than inside a maritime arrangement. A charterer reading the six items learns that a technical mechanism, however well drafted, does not open the waterway on its own.
