Iran foreign minister keeps indirect talks with U.S. open: state media

Iran is sticking to its position that it would only reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz if its conditions are met, despite a rebuke from U.S. President Donald Trump, while a senior Iranian military leader stressed his country’s readiness to continue fighting.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Sunday claimed that it seized an autonomous U.S. submarine.

“Our conditions are clear; any progress toward the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is contingent upon the fulfillment of these conditions, and we will not back down from them,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on his Telegram channel translated by Google.

“During our meetings with mediators, these conditions were fully conveyed, explained, and elaborated upon, and the mediators, in turn, relayed them to the American side,” he said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Trump told reporters Saturday that he has rejected Iran’s latest conditional proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies moved before the start of the war. “They made a proposal but I rejected it.”

The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed U.S. officials as saying that Trump told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after November’s midterm elections.

Araghchi on Friday had proposed reopening the strait and resuming nuclear talks with the U.S. within seven days if the Trump administration accepts its conditions.

In his latest statement, Araghchi said intermediaries between the U.S. and Iran have yet to relay a formal response from Trump to Tehran. “Only a negotiated solution can break this deadlock,” he said.

Tehran’s conditions include a halt to what it calls U.S. “acts of aggression,” an end to the naval blockade and economic warfare, and the release of Iranian assets, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said last week.

Iranian military leaders continued to underline their readiness to continue the war, which began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli air strikes on the country.

“The war is not over,” the Iranian Student News Agency quoted Iran’s army commander-in-chief, Amir Hatami, as saying. “We have won, but we must consolidate this victory, and the aggressor enemy, who has suffered heavy blows, must continue to be prepared to receive heavy blows from the soldiers of our beloved Iran,” he said.