Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, threatened on Tuesday, September 29, to attack infrastructure if Iran cannot sell oil or secure its security, while Tehran awaited a formal U.S. response to its plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either; or if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will remain safe,” Ghalibaf said in a video released by state TV. He also serves as Iran’s parliament speaker.
Iran has maintained a blockade on commercial shipping through Hormuz since the war began in late February with U.S.-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic. Before the conflict, a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas traveled along the route. The U.S. military, meanwhile, has kept a counter-blockade in place at Iranian ports to prevent Tehran from exporting oil.
The Hormuz Threat
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Tuesday that the U.S. claim that the strait remains open was false. The article describes the corps as the ideological arm of Iran’s military. Spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said, “Sneaking a few hundred barrels of oil through under the cover of darkness — with transponders turned off and at great cost — does not constitute the strait being open.”
Mohebbi said a “truly open strait” would see at least 125 vessels pass daily, carrying a minimum of 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products. He also warned, “Any vessel attempting to pass through sustains damage — either we strike it, or it hits a mine.” Tehran says the waterway is closed; the U.S. says oil is moving through it.
The shipping dispute reaches well beyond Iran and the United States. Tehran’s control of Hormuz has dealt a severe blow to Gulf states, which have also come under Iranian fire, Arab News reported. Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said Iranian authorities “need to take a decision to distance our countries from this war and to take a very clear position of non-aggression toward their neighbors.”
Terms for Reopening the Strait
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Monday that Qatari intermediaries had presented ideas. They would raise the matter with the American side again before conveying a final U.S. response. “The Qataris hope this will be done by tomorrow,” he said in New York, where he was attending the U.N. General Assembly.
Araghchi said the current focus was “solely on the Strait of Hormuz,” and that reopening it depended on conditions communicated to the other side. Iran has demanded a seven-day ceasefire across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, as a precondition for ending its blockade. It also wants assets abroad unfrozen, sanctions on its oil sector lifted, and the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports ended.
Diplomacy and Economic Pressure
Araghchi met with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in New York last week. Al Ansari said several meetings had taken place and messages had been exchanged, including in New York and earlier. “Current efforts are focused on building common ground between the parties,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump had dismissed Tehran’s proposal. Fighting has subsided in recent weeks, but Tehran continues to target ships in the strait, while Washington has relied on economic pressure rather than further military action. The infrastructure threat now accompanies Iran’s demands over shipping, sanctions, foreign assets and the U.S. blockade.