Tensions persist over Hormuz

Iran said on Sunday it remained committed to diplomacy but was prepared to confront any new aggression, after US President Donald Trump rejected its road map for a ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the remarks in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press in New York, where he was among senior Iranian officials attending the United Nations General Assembly.

After the interview, Araghchi said in a post on X that he and President Masoud Pezeshkian "did not come to New York to sell a war".

"We came to forge peace. Iran nonetheless remains steadfast in the face of any aggression — even if it comes to an apocalyptic war. At the same time, we are ready for real diplomacy," he wrote.

In the interview, Araghchi said Tehran would continue pursuing diplomacy because "we should not miss any chance for peace", adding that Iran was not concerned about the upcoming midterm elections in the United States and that its focus remained on national interests.

On the Strait of Hormuz, he said Iran's proposed seven-day truce would allow the waterway to return to normal provided the US takes specific steps, including ending the war and releasing frozen Iranian funds and assets.

Under the proposal, the strait would reopen on the sixth day, followed by the resumption of negotiations on the seventh, he added.

Habibollah Sayyari, an Iranian military official, said the west of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are under the complete control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, while the eastern part of the strait and the northern Indian Ocean are under the complete control of the Iranian Army Navy, Mehr News Agency reported on Monday.

"We are operating decisively in the northern Sea of Oman and east of the Strait of Hormuz, and we do not allow anyone to pass," he was quoted as saying, adding that IRGC forces remained firm.

Arhama Siddiqa, a research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad in Pakistan, told China Daily that the public positions of Washington and Tehran are often tougher than those discussed through intermediaries, and that continued communication through mediators remains important.

Neither the US nor Iran wants to be seen publicly as entering negotiations from a position of weakness or making unilateral concessions, as either could trigger political backlash at home, Siddiqa said.

Tehran would formulate its position based on what it considers its security, economic and sovereign interests, while the US has its own conditions and calculations, she said.

"The challenge is therefore to find sufficient common ground between two positions that remain quite far apart," she said.

"What is encouraging is that Iran has continued to signal its readiness for diplomacy while also making its conditions clear. The important thing now is to prevent rhetoric on either side from narrowing the political space available to mediators."

From Washington's perspective, the current strategy appears aimed at maintaining sufficient military and economic pressure so that any eventual return to negotiations can be presented as having produced tangible concessions, Siddiqa said.

"Ultimately, wars of this nature rarely end just because one side suddenly abandons all of its objectives. They end when the costs of continuing begin to outweigh the advantages of holding maximalist positions," she said.

"The task for Pakistan, Qatar and other mediators is to help create that political space before another round of escalation makes compromise even more difficult," she added.

In another development in the region, Yemen's Houthi group said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia's warplanes had carried out 26 airstrikes across five Yemeni provinces over the past 24 hours, while Yemeni government forces said they had conducted hundreds of attacks against Houthi military targets in the past three days, Xinhua News Agency reported.