Iran says no decision yet on a return to talks with the US

“We have not yet made a decision to restart negotiations with the United States,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on Telegram on Saturday, reiterating remarks he made to Iranian news outlet Shahrara News.

Mediators from both Qatar and Pakistan are exchanging messages and are in contact with Iran, “but this does not mean negotiations”, he said.

Araghchi blamed the US for the return to violence following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Pakistan in June, and said a new path out of the conflict must be defined.

He said Iran is separately working with Oman on a technical process to establish new routes for shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, but any transit of ships is contingent on a political solution being reached.

“The routes that previously existed are no longer functional, and a new route must be defined. We are currently designing a temporary route that will become the final route in the next stages,” the minister said.

He added that “whether or not shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz resumes … depends on the fulfilment of other conditions that the United States must adhere to”.

Araghchi’s comments came on the same day that US President Trump said: “After we finish defeating Iran … I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”

In response, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said on X that the “Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian”.

As the two sides trade remarks, control over the key waterway remains contested.

On Friday, the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) said that one of its ships had come under attack while transiting the Strait of Hormuz – the latest in a string of such incidents over the past weeks.

Following six months of fighting that has failed to fulfil Washington and Israel’s aim of overthrowing Iran’s leaders or opening the Strait of Hormuz, the US now appears to be signalling a move towards the use of economic pressure to achieve its goals.

On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US will soon apply new economic measures to pressure Iran.

“It will be a combination of economic isolation the world has never seen before, and the continued blockade in the Strait of Hormuz that will keep anything from going in or out of the Iranian ports,” he said in an interview on Newsmax.

In August, the US announced steps to dismantle a web of currency exchange houses and shell companies that it said helped Iran secretly move hundreds of millions of dollars through the international financial system.

“Iran’s shadow banking system is buckling under Economic Fury, and the regime is running out of ways to move money,” Bessent said when those sanctions were announced.

This strategy is not new: Iran has faced a web of ever-tightening economic sanctions from the US and others since the revolution in 1979. Economic troubles have repeatedly led to highly destabilising protests – but none have triggered meaningful regime change.

Marc Ginsberg, a former US ambassador and White House Middle East policy adviser, told Al Jazeera that while the US has long used maximum pressure tactics, the current situation is distinct, and the White House lacks a clear strategy to resolve the standoff.

“This is sort of a game of economic chicken. Which of the two parties is going to jump off the side of the road before a collision?” he said. “I think in the end, the administration’s going to cave before the Iranian government does.”