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Iran's five peace terms: Hormuz first

2 min read

16:36UTC

Tehran published five conditions for ending the war. The fifth, permanent control of the Strait of Hormuz, would rewrite international maritime law.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Iran is legislating Hormuz control into permanent law before any ceasefire.

Iran's stated terms for ending the war, relayed through PressTV on 25 March via a senior political-security official, are: (1) complete cessation of all attacks; (2) concrete security mechanisms preventing reimposition of war; (3) guaranteed reparations; (4) end of war across all fronts for all resistance groups; and (5) recognition of Iran's right to control the Strait of Hormuz. ¹

Condition five is not a ceasefire demand. Under UNCLOS, the strait of Hormuz is an international waterway; Iran may regulate transit through its territorial waters but cannot claim sovereignty over passage itself. No US administration could accept this. Iran almost certainly knows that.

Western coverage has framed Iran as simply "refusing talks" . The five-condition structure tells a different story: Iran has a formal position, and its most consequential demand is being legislated domestically through the Majlis bill and formalised internationally through the IMO notification . Iran is building legal architecture to outlast the war, following the same model Egypt used after Suez in 1957: establish physical control during a crisis, then legislate before it ends.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran has published five demands it says must be met before it will stop fighting. The first four involve ceasefire terms and compensation. The fifth is different: Iran wants permanent legal recognition that it controls the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage through which most of the Persian Gulf's oil leaves. Under current international law, the strait is an international waterway. Every country's ships have the right to pass through it. Iran cannot legally block that passage, even though the water runs alongside its coast. Iran's fifth condition would change that law. No US president can agree to this. And Iran almost certainly knows that. The more telling detail is that Iran is not just saying it; it is also passing a law in its parliament to formalise the toll regime, and filing paperwork with the international shipping body. Iran is building the legal infrastructure of permanent control while the war is still ongoing.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Iran's Hormuz sovereignty demand is thirty years in development. Tehran has consistently argued since the 1994 Law of the Sea negotiations that its territorial waters include the strait's northern half, and that innocent passage rights are not absolute for warships of hostile states. The IRGC's toll infrastructure built between 2015 and 2025 was designed to create an operational fact before any legal claim was tested.

The war created the opportunity to formalise what the IRGC had been building. The Majlis toll bill and the IMO notification are the legal superstructure on top of an operational infrastructure that already exists.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Iran's five conditions remove diplomatic off-ramps: any deal requires accepting demands that no allied government can publicly endorse, guaranteeing talks collapse if aired publicly.
Precedent
If the Majlis bill passes before a ceasefire, the Hormuz toll regime becomes Iranian domestic law that any future government would need to repeal, entrenching the leverage beyond this war.

Sources:PressTV

Mentions:Press TV →Majlis →Iran →Strait of Hormuz →UN Convention on the Law of the Sea →

First Reported In

Update #50 · Houthis join; Iran holds two chokepoints

PressTV· 28 Mar 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran: only allied ships may pass Hormuz

Iran's IMO notification revoking innocent passage for hostile parties is the international legal layer underpinning the five conditions, with Hormuz sovereignty as condition five.

Occurred 27 Mar 2026

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This Event

Iran's five peace terms: Hormuz first

The conditions function less as a negotiating position and more as a public statement that Iran does not intend to negotiate on terms Washington can meet.

Led to

Islamabad four stall on Hormuz terms

Iran's five war-ending conditions, including Hormuz sovereignty, are the structural obstacle the Islamabad Four summit cannot bridge, as Araghchi's statement confirms.

Occurred 29 Mar 2026

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Trump drops Hormuz as core war objective

Iran's five conditions included permanent Hormuz sovereignty; Trump's private abandonment of that demand narrows the gap between the two positions.

Occurred 31 Mar 2026

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Different Perspectives

UK Maritime Trade Operations

UKMTO logged six armed men boarding a tanker 136 nautical miles east of Al Mukalla on 20 August and redirecting it toward Somalia. A vessel steered toward the Somali coast reads as an attempted seizure, a distinct hazard from the stand-off strikes the same lane has seen before.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

Iran's Majlis speaker received Iraq's Hormuz carve-out request in Baghdad on 19 August, a request that treats passage as Tehran's to grant. Ghalibaf's authority over that grant sits alongside the Revolutionary Guard's separate transit rules, which have moved independently of Iran's foreign ministry before.

Haibat al-Halbousi

Iraq's parliament speaker asked Iran for special consideration on Iraqi Hormuz oil exports during Ghalibaf's 19 August Baghdad visit. Iraq presses the request from a weak position: Iran's central bank is simultaneously demanding Baghdad release Iranian reserves parked in Iraqi accounts.

Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research

Switzerland's economics ministry updated the Article 21 forms governing lawful Iran money transfers on 19 August, with only the revised forms accepted from 26 August. Bern operates one of the few remaining legal Iran payment channels and has just set a hard cutover on its control point.

Motegi Toshimitsu

Japan's foreign minister said in Muscat on 20 August that Tokyo wants closer coordination with Oman on safe Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb passage. Japan has no naval presence of its own in the strait, so it is routing the ask through the state negotiating with Iran instead.

Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi

Oman's foreign minister joined Japan's in Muscat on 20 August to call for intensified coordination on Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb navigation. Oman also runs the mediation track with Tehran, so the appeal travels through the same channel as the negotiation.