Iran, US Edge Closer to Talks as Nuclear Stalemate Persists

Abbas Araghchi sat down with Qatari mediators in New York on Monday with a specific ask: carry back to Washington the details of Iran's plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian Foreign Minister told state media he expected a response from the United States by Tuesday, though he did not wait around to receive it in person—he flew back to Tehran within hours, confident that Qatar knew how to reach him when the answer came.

The proposal Araghchi was pitching had been unveiled just three days earlier at the United Nations General Assembly. Iran's terms were straightforward: the US would release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions, and end its naval blockade of Iranian ports. If Washington agreed to those steps within four or five days, the Strait of Hormuz could reopen and serious negotiations on Iran's nuclear program could begin by day seven. It was a sequenced offer, designed to show movement on both sides before the harder questions got tackled. Trump rejected it on Saturday, calling it unacceptable.

But the machinery of negotiation kept turning. A US official speaking to Al Jazeera described the indirect discussions as positive and constructive, even as the American position remained firm: there would be no final agreement unless Iran's nuclear program was part of the deal. The official acknowledged that Iran had signaled flexibility on nuclear matters, but the two sides remained far apart on a crucial detail—who moves first, and when. Trump, the official said, was willing to offer sanctions relief and access to frozen funds, but only in exchange for concrete progress on the nuclear file.

Trust between the parties was thin. The US official expressed skepticism about Iran's commitment to an earlier understanding, a memorandum signed in June. Iran had broken that agreement, the official claimed, by attacking commercial vessels in the strait. Tehran rejected the accusation entirely, flipping the blame back to Washington for failing to stop Israeli operations in Lebanon and for trying to establish alternative shipping routes that would bypass Iranian waters altogether.

The Strait of Hormuz itself remained the physical center of the dispute. Before the war began on February 28, when the US and Israel launched their offensive, the waterway had carried roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies. Iran had closed it in response. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping had severely curtailed traffic, pushing oil prices above $100 a barrel. Yet the blockade was not absolute. Some vessels had found workarounds—traveling at night along the Omani coast with tracking systems disabled, offloading cargo to tankers outside the strait. Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, reported on Saturday that American forces had assisted 2,000 such transits and moved more than a billion barrels of oil in recent months. By September, crude exports from major Middle Eastern producers had rebounded to 12.8 million barrels per day, the highest level since fighting began, though still far below the 18.8 million barrels shipped in February.

In Washington, Trump projected confidence. Speaking to reporters on Monday, he said US officials had also been in contact with mediators and that victory was assured. The war would end quickly, he predicted, and gas prices would fall once the US prevailed. In Tehran, the tone was defiant. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a message marking the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War and the 2024 killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, declaring that the era of foreign domination was finished. The enemy had suffered painful losses from Iranian forces and their allies guarding the strait, Khamenei said, and would not dare venture beyond the Arabian Sea. Major-General Ali Abdollahi, the armed forces chief of staff, warned that Iran and its allies would deliver a decisive and devastating response to any threat. Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari insisted the strait remained closed and that Iranian forces stood ready to repel any attempt to breach it.

What remained unclear was whether the gap between the two sides could narrow. Iran wanted sanctions relief and fund access first, with nuclear talks to follow. The US wanted nuclear progress as a condition of any relief. Both sides claimed flexibility, but the sequencing question—who moves first—appeared to be the wall neither had yet found a way around. The Qataris carried messages back and forth. The mediators knew how to reach both capitals. But whether those messages could bridge the distance remained to be seen.