Mehr News Agency, an Iranian state wire, reported on Monday 17 August that Iran's foreign ministry had categorically ruled out any talks on extending the 60-day period set by the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)1. the MOU is a timed instrument from the Pakistani mediation track. Its 14-point text became public through reporting on 17 June, though no signatory has released an official version.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had spent 15 August prising his own channel apart from the others. The shipping-map agreement with Oman is "a separate issue" from reopening the Strait of Hormuz, he said, which "depends on fulfilling other conditions that the US must abide by"2. That is a reversal on the record. When Araghchi led a delegation to Muscat on 18 July, the Oman-hosted talks were narrowly and explicitly about reopening the strait; four weeks on, the same minister says the Oman track and the reopening are two different subjects. The one negotiating channel that had a defined agenda has been redefined as something smaller.
He went further on the mediators. Iran is in contact with Qatar and Pakistan, who carry messages to Washington, but "this does not constitute negotiation. We have not yet made a decision to resume negotiations with the US"3. Read alongside the refusal to extend the MOU period, that leaves Tehran with contacts it declines to call talks and a deadline it declines to move.
The price attached to the waterway has been rising throughout. Iran's Supreme National Security Council published six conditions for reopening on 8 August, among them sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets. Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei then attached environmental remediation running to trillions of dollars to any future administration of the strait. A negotiating position that adds terms while refusing to extend the time available to meet them is not obviously aimed at a deal inside the 60 days.
