Hendra Wijaya
Indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Qatar on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, are continuing this week as both sides seek an end to a war that has now lasted seven months. Yet despite a shared interest in a diplomatic off-ramp, the two governments remain at odds over the sequence and scope of any settlement, with the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's nuclear programme sitting at the centre of the impasse.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi departed New York on Tuesday after telling state broadcaster IRIB that he expected a formal American reply to Tehran's proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz before the day was out. That plan, first relayed to Washington through Qatari mediators the previous week, would see the strategic waterway reopened within seven days in exchange for a series of concessions from the United States.
Tehran's conditions include the lifting of the US naval blockade, the waiving of sanctions, the release of roughly $12bn in frozen Iranian assets, and the enforcement of a broader regional ceasefire that would extend to Lebanon. Only after those steps were taken, according to the Iranian proposal, would wider peace negotiations — including any discussion of Iran's nuclear programme — begin.
President Donald Trump has been reported to have rejected the offer outright. Under the Iranian formula, de-escalation would come first and the nuclear file would be addressed later, a sequencing Washington has consistently refused to accept. Despite that public rejection, Araghchi has insisted he has not received a formal response through the mediating channel, leaving the diplomatic track formally open even as the two capitals trade contradictory accounts of where things stand.
Qatari mediators met Araghchi in New York on Monday to discuss how to move Tehran's proposal forward. In a post on Telegram, the Iranian foreign minister said the conversation had focused exclusively on the Strait of Hormuz and denied that Washington had formally turned the plan down. He described the mediators as having raised their own ideas, which were discussed, and said Qatar would take the matter back to the American side before conveying a final answer to Tehran.
Araghchi characterised the talks as having grown more serious, but was careful to add that Iran's stance has not shifted. He said Tehran's conditions for reopening the strait remain clear, that its position on other questions is equally clear, and that there had so far been no discussion of flexibility whatsoever. His remarks appeared designed to counter suggestions that Iran might be prepared to soften its demands under pressure.
The American position, by contrast, is that all outstanding issues — above all Iran's nuclear programme — should be resolved in a single comprehensive agreement rather than through the gradual, step-by-step approach Tehran favours. A US official told the Associated Press last week that Trump will not sign a final peace deal until the nuclear question is addressed, though the same official indicated the president would be willing to grant sanctions relief and release some frozen funds if meaningful progress were made on that front.
That account was echoed on Monday by the US outlet Axios, which reported that Trump had offered Iran sanctions relief in return for nuclear concessions. The report cited US officials, one of whom described the indirect talks as positive and constructive and said Tehran had signalled flexibility on nuclear matters. Trump responded angrily on Truth Social, calling the story a hoax, insisting it was untrue and demanding that Axios withdraw the article — a denial that has muddied the picture of what, if anything, has been tabled.
The disconnect between the two narratives reflects a deeper structural problem in the negotiations. Washington wants to front-load the nuclear issue, viewing it as the irreplaceable core of any durable settlement, while Tehran wants to bank tangible economic and security relief before surrendering leverage it has spent years accumulating. Neither side, according to the public record, has yet shown a willingness to move first, and the gap between the two agendas has been widened by mutual distrust rather than narrowed by the Qatar channel.
Beyond the immediate bargaining, the humanitarian and economic backdrop remains severe. Iran has lived under heavy sanctions for decades, and the restrictions have taken a documented toll on ordinary life, including access to essential medicines and healthcare. In August, Washington announced yet another sweeping round of economic measures targeting Iran and the countries that trade with it, part of an effort to cut the country off from the global economy during the diplomatic deadlock.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described that campaign as the economic asphyxiation of Iran. Quantifying the human cost of such measures is notoriously difficult, and Tehran characterises the pressure as economic warfare. A study published last year in the Lancet Global Health, a highly regarded medical journal, estimated that more than 564,250 people worldwide die annually as a result of US sanctions — a figure that Iranian officials and critics of the policy have seized on in arguing that the humanitarian consequences extend well beyond the intended targets.
The Strait of Hormuz remains the most concrete point of contact between the two sides, and it is no accident that Iran has placed it at the front of its proposal. The waterway is a global energy chokepoint, and its closure or disruption carries consequences for oil markets and shipping far beyond the region. By offering to reopen it within days, Tehran is presenting Washington with a visible, verifiable confidence-building step that would cost Iran relatively little in the short term while delivering an immediate economic benefit to the wider world.
Iran's proposal also incorporates elements of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding, which both countries signed on June 17. That earlier framework provides a degree of shared reference language, but it has not proved sufficient to bridge the current divide. The memorandum's existence nonetheless gives mediators something to work with, and Qatari officials have positioned themselves as the conduit through which any formal American response will travel.
For now, the most that can be said is that the channel is open and both governments continue to describe diplomacy as preferable to further escalation. But the substance of the dispute — whether de-escalation precedes the nuclear file or the nuclear file precedes de-escalation — remains unresolved. Until one side moves on that question, the talks in New York are likely to produce more process than peace, and the seven-month war will continue to set the terms of a negotiation that neither party has yet been willing to conclude on the other's terms.
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