Iran says it awaits US response to seven-point plan sent via Qatar
Tehran's own Tuesday deadline for a US reply on reopening the Strait of Hormuz passed unmet, extending a standoff that has already cut Iran's oil exports.
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Map: The Gulf and Hormuz, marking Strait of Hormuz
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran has sent Washington a seven-point plan through Qatari mediators and is now waiting for an official answer. He had earlier said he expected a US response by Tuesday.
That Tuesday deadline, tied to Iran's demand that the US allow the Strait of Hormuz to reopen on Tehran's terms, passed without a reply. Araghchi has said Washington must show it wants peace or a deal, and has repeated that the terms set by Iran's Supreme Leader must be met before Hormuz reopens.
The standoff has hardened elsewhere. An Iranian Army spokesperson has offered a bounty of 10 billion toman for the capture, dead or alive, of an American soldier. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf has warned the region will not sell oil if Iran cannot sell its own, and an IRGC spokesperson has said the US must admit defeat and leave the region. The Kremlin has said it wants Iran to remain in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has asked for clarification of remarks suggesting Tehran might quit it. President Trump has said he never offered Iran sanctions relief, contradicting earlier reports of a sanctions-for-nuclear-progress offer.
Iran's oil exports have fallen sharply under a US naval blockade, while exports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq have recovered. Iran's state news has also reported a blast heard off Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. The pattern since late August has been the same: Tehran routes conditions through Qatar and waits on Washington, without fresh substance on enrichment, sanctions or Hormuz terms, and every deadline in this cycle, including Araghchi's own Tuesday target, has slipped without a deal. A US source has separately put the odds of an agreement as extremely slim. With no change to shipping, exports or military posture attached to the latest plan, the standoff and the oil risk premium built into it are left where they were, unchanged rather than pointing in either direction.