Iran Attaches Its Settlement Terms to a Shipping Lane, Hours After Its Foreign Minister Said the Route Was Nearly Agreed
The Supreme National Security Council said Hormuz stays shut until Washington “corrects its behavior” — then listed compensation, sanctions relief and a US withdrawal from the region as the price of a waterway.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council issued a statement on Saturday 8 August, carried by state broadcaster IRIB and attributed to the council’s secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, an IRGC commander, saying the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the United States “corrects its behavior.” The conditions as reported: that Washington never again threaten Iran; that it permanently end the war with Iran and with Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis; that it lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports, reinstated 14 July; that it withdraw its military from the region; that it pay full compensation for damage sustained in the 2025 and 2026 wars; that it lift all sanctions; and that it release all frozen Iranian assets unconditionally. The statement was reported independently by AP, CBS News, the Times of Israel and the Christian Science Monitor.
Three Iranian institutions spoke within roughly twelve hours. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said talks with Oman were “approaching the final stages” and that the sides were “very close to the final result,” while cautioning that “this is not a sign of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz” — reopening, he said, hinges on “other conditions” and on compensation for what he called a US “violation.” IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi told Tasnim, the IRGC-affiliated agency, that the Strait would reopen “whenever the United States accepts Iran’s conditions.” The SNSC then specified what those conditions were. On the American side, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News hours before the statement that “we’ve made some progress over the last few days,” and Trump said in an interview published 7 August that the Iranians want a deal and “don’t want to be hit.”
Assessment: The list is not new. What is new is where it has been attached. These were the terms Iran had put on a permanent settlement — the accord Washington intended would also close the nuclear file and the 60 percent stockpile — and they are now the asking price for a shipping lane. That is a downgrade in scope and an upgrade in cost at once. Resist reading the day’s sequence as choreography: nothing in the record establishes whether the ministry, the Guard and the council were diverging or dividing labour. Note also what CNBC has documented — a repeated cycle of imminent-deal claims from Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that no announcement follows.