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Iran's five peace terms: Hormuz first

2 min read

10:51UTC

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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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:PressTV →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

Israel

The IDF struck a Lebanese army unit on 6 June, killing a colonel, and privately told Moscow that shelling near Bushehr was accidental, per Putin's SPIEF disclosure. Israel is advancing in Lebanon past an unenforced ceasefire text while maintaining a back-channel to Russia on nuclear-site deconfliction.

Lebanon

President Aoun told CNN on 5 June that Iran uses Lebanon as a bargaining chip and urged Hezbollah toward diplomacy; on 6 June an IDF strike killed a Lebanese army colonel on the Khardali-Nabatieh road. The Lebanese state is publicly rejecting Iranian tutelage while the army sustains casualties from Israeli fire and the Washington framework remains unenforced.

Bahrain

Bahrain's US Fifth Fleet headquarters was among the targets in the 5-6 June two-country salvo; its PAC-3 magazine stands at 87 per cent depletion with an 18-month resupply gap and no comparable arms sale has been announced. The state is defending a critical US regional command on a thinning interceptor stock.

Kuwait

Kuwait received a $1.98bn US counter-drone sale approval on the same day IRGC missiles targeted its bases; it expelled two Iranian diplomats on 4 June and filed a formal protest. The arms approval gives Kuwait a future capability but leaves a 6-18 month delivery gap that the salvo tempo is already pressing.

Russia

Putin reaffirmed Russia's offer to hold Iran's 440.9 kg HEU at SPIEF on 6 June, said Russia is not arming Iran, and disclosed that both the US and Israel privately told Moscow that shelling near Bushehr was accidental. The restatement casts Moscow as the only remaining mediator both sides call, a position serving Russian interests whatever the nuclear file produces.

Iran

The IRGC, per Iranian state media, fired seven ballistic missiles at US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, the largest two-country salvo of the war, and framed the launches as lawful retaliation; Foreign Minister Araghchi rejected Aoun's bargaining-chip accusation and Velayati warned Beirut against diplomatic naivety. Tehran has sent no HEU counter-proposal since Araghchi confirmed no progress on 4 June.