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Indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, aimed at bringing an end to a war that has now dragged on for seven months, carried on this week on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, with Qatar serving as the go-between. Yet even as both sides signal a continued interest in a diplomatic off-ramp, they remain fundamentally at odds over what the talks should cover and in what order.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, departed New York on Tuesday after telling the state broadcaster IRIB that he expected a formal American answer to Tehran’s latest proposal by the end of the day. That offer, which Iran says would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened within a week, was relayed to the United States through Qatari mediators the previous week and has become the central point of contention in the current round of diplomacy.
The Iranian plan is structured as a sequence rather than a single comprehensive bargain. Under its terms, Tehran would reopen the vital waterway in exchange for Washington lifting its naval blockade, waiving sanctions, releasing roughly $12bn in frozen Iranian assets and enforcing a broader regional ceasefire that would include Lebanon. Only after those steps were taken, according to the Iranian vision, would wider peace negotiations — including discussion of Iran’s nuclear programme — get under way.
President Donald Trump was reported to have rejected that framework, a development that appeared to short-circuit the proposal before it had been formally answered. Despite those reports, Araghchi has insisted that no official response has yet reached Tehran through the mediating channel, leaving the process in an ambiguous state in which public pronouncements from Washington and the formal diplomatic track do not fully align.
The disagreement over sequencing goes to the heart of the impasse. American officials say the United States wants a single, comprehensive agreement that resolves all outstanding issues — above all Iran’s nuclear programme — in one stroke, rather than a gradual, step-by-step arrangement that could leave the most difficult questions unresolved. Tehran, by contrast, appears to favour a phased approach in which confidence-building measures come first and the nuclear file is addressed later.
Qatari mediators met Araghchi in New York on Monday to explore how to move Tehran’s Hormuz proposal forward and eventually transition to broader peace talks. In a post on Telegram, Araghchi stressed that the discussion was confined to the Strait of Hormuz and pushed back on the notion that Washington had formally turned the proposal down. He described the Qataris as having brought their own ideas to the table, which were discussed, and said they would raise the matter with the American side again before conveying a final US response back to Iran through the same channel.
The Iranian foreign minister characterised the negotiations as having become more serious, while cautioning that Tehran’s substantive position has not shifted. He said Iran’s conditions for reopening the strait are unambiguous, that its stance on other questions is equally clear, and that no discussion of flexibility had taken place. His proposal incorporates elements of the memorandum of understanding signed by both countries on June 17, which is known as the Islamabad MoU.
Speculation about American willingness to compromise has added a further layer of confusion. A US official, speaking anonymously to the Associated Press, said Trump is not prepared to conclude a final peace deal until the nuclear issue is addressed, but would be open to granting sanctions relief and releasing some frozen funds if progress is made on that file. Axios subsequently reported that Trump had offered Iran sanctions relief in return for nuclear concessions, citing US officials, one of whom described the indirect talks as positive and constructive and said Tehran had indicated flexibility on nuclear matters.
That reporting drew a sharp and public denial from the president, who denounced the story as a hoax in a post on Truth Social and demanded that Axios retract it. The episode illustrates how difficult it has become to distinguish between genuine diplomatic movement and the conflicting signals emanating from both capitals, and it complicates the task of mediators trying to build momentum toward a settlement.
Sanctions form the economic backdrop against which these negotiations are unfolding. Iran has lived under heavy restrictions for decades, and the measures have taken a severe toll on ordinary Iranians, including their access to essential medicines and healthcare. In August, Washington announced yet another sweeping round of economic penalties targeting Iran and the countries that trade with it, part of an effort to isolate the country from the global economy while diplomacy remained deadlocked. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the campaign as the economic asphyxiation of Iran.
Quantifying the human cost of what Tehran regards as economic warfare is difficult. A study published last year in the Lancet Global Health, a highly regarded medical journal, concluded that more than 564,250 people die worldwide each year as a result of US sanctions. Such figures underscore the stakes for Iran’s leadership as it weighs whether to trade concessions on the strait and its nuclear programme for relief that could ease pressure on its population.
For now, the two sides remain locked in a familiar pattern: both profess to want a diplomatic settlement, yet they disagree on whether that settlement should be reached gradually or all at once, and on which issues must be addressed first. Qatar’s mediation has kept a channel open, and Araghchi’s comments suggest Tehran is not walking away. But with the nuclear question unresolved, the blockade in place and the Strait of Hormuz still a bargaining chip rather than a reopened route, the gap between the two positions remains wide, and the next formal American response — whenever it arrives — will determine whether the New York round produced movement or merely another pause in a war with no clear end in sight.
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