Ex-minister Mottaki says US must lift Hormuz naval blockade before Iran talks
Manouchehr Mottaki, a member of Iran’s parliament and foreign minister under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Euronews that the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz is unsustainable while Iran and the United States maintain concurrent blockades and cargo ships are disabled in the waterway every day. He called the American naval blockade the immediate obstacle to moving on, describing it as illegal and a violation of international law, and said Washington must lift it as a precondition for any resumption of talks.
Tehran has imposed its own blockade, saying vessels from China, India, Iraq and Qatar may pass freely while ships from countries it deems aligned with the United States are blocked or targeted. Mottaki said that over the past 10 days the IRGC Navy has been working to bring unauthorised transit through the strait to zero, and that every day three, four, five or even seven ships are immobilised or stranded after encounters with mines or drone and missile projectiles. He called the closure of Hormuz the root of the regional crisis, noting that before the war the strait was open and maritime traffic from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa moved through the Persian Gulf and Hormuz.
After what he described as a defeat for US President Donald Trump and his party in the US elections, Mottaki said they must implement the memorandum of understanding and, as a first step, lift the blockade, arguing that ending it is necessary to move beyond a state of neither war nor peace. The interview came as Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, travelled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, reportedly carrying a message from Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei on how to end the war, according to media outlets close to the IRGC. Rezaei had previously told US Vice President JD Vance that Washington’s proposals were not convincing and that Tehran’s conditions for reopening the strait must be met in full. Euronews noted that the midterm results have opened divisions within the Trump administration.
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