TEHRAN – Iran said the US must lift its naval blockade and show it’s serious about ending the war diplomatically, as a deadlock over talks and growing threats from both sides fuel fears of a return to outright conflict.
“Iran is prepared to give diplomacy another chance if we see strong evidence of a sincere desire on the part of the US to achieve a just and honourable solution to permanently end this conflict,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in an op-ed in the Financial Times.
In an earlier interview with Iraqi media, Araghchi urged the US to return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in June but quickly collapsed.
Under that deal, Iran agreed to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and the US was to lift the naval blockade, release frozen Iranian oil funds and remove sanctions.
“If they adhere to these conditions, they should know that the Strait will be fully opened, and after that, we will hold further rounds of negotiations until a final agreement is reached,” he said.
The US has shown little appetite to return to the June memorandum.
Since its collapse, Washington has ramped up economic pressure on Tehran and retrained its focus on Iran’s nuclear programme, widening the gulf between the two sides.
Brent oil rose above US$110 per barrel on Oct 21 as attacks on shipping in the Strait continued to disrupt traffic through the waterway.
US President Donald Trump has frequently dangled the threat of new strikes on Iran in recent weeks, suggesting he may restart bombing after the Nov 3 midterm elections.
That’s left talks deadlocked and has fuelled fears among Iranian leaders that, without a concrete guarantee from the US to de-escalate, Washington will re-enter negotiations with the intention of resuming military strikes.
Iranian officials have repeatedly spoken about the distrust between the two sides in recent days.
Both the June 2025 war and the current conflict were launched by Israel and the US in the middle of high-level talks between Tehran and Washington.
“Our nation today does not trust the United States and believes that if we negotiate, they will attack us again,” President Masoud Pezeshkian told Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir, one of the main mediators between the two sides, during a visit to Tehran on Oct 20.
In comments made on Oct 21, Pezeshkian said that Iran and the US can “sit together and talk” when the US “recognises the rights of the Iranian people and stops bullying and aggression.”
“Given that the White House has shown no willingness to reach an understanding on the way forward, while also threatening more violence, there is little reason to expect progress now,” Araghchi wrote in his FT op-ed.
‘Finish the job’
Trump’s threats to resume air strikes on the Islamic Republic have prompted Iranian officials in turn to vow retaliation against infrastructure in Arab Gulf countries if they’re attacked.
US and Israeli strikes on Iran have killed thousands of Iranians, while dozens of people have been killed in Iranian drone and missile strikes on oil-rich US allies in the Persian Gulf.
The war created a crisis over fuel supply and prices as shipping in the Strait of Hormuz remains severely hindered by the tense stand-off.
“Unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job,” Trump said last week in his endorsement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli elections.
Speculation about joint US-Israeli attack plans grew on Oct 20 after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel and met with Netanyahu.
“We must complete the elimination of the Iranian regime,” the Israeli leader said in a speech at the opening of a university on Oct 20, according to a government statement.
“Because as long as it lives, even if it is battered, bruised, and beaten, it is so fanatical that it will try again to do what it did a year ago, which we stopped them from doing: producing nuclear bombs and rebuilding the axis.” BLOOMBERG