Araghchi says Iran's seven-day Hormuz offer still stands as Guards claim two tankers hit mines

Iran’s offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within a week is still on the table, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, even as the Revolutionary Guards claimed that two crude tankers trying to slip through the waterway had caught fire after hitting naval mines.

Speaking to Iranian media in Baghdad, where he had arrived for a meeting of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation foreign ministers, Araghchi said: “Our situation is clear and based on the seven-days proposal presented to the US.” He said “the way to reopening the Strait of Hormuz is obvious,” but questioned Washington’s good faith, “if there is any honesty on the US part, which there isn’t.”

Under the plan, he said, the strait would open within six days if the United States accepted Tehran’s conditions, and talks between the two countries would resume on the seventh. Iran put the proposal forward in mid-September after an interim ceasefire collapsed. Its security chief said last week that talks had stalled because Washington had not addressed all seven of Iran’s conditions.

Two tankers, two fires

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said one tanker struck a mine and was hit by a “fierce fire”, and a second was engulfed in a “massive blaze” that began in its engine room and left the vessel stranded. Each was carrying about two million barrels of crude, the Guards said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

The IRGC said both ships had switched off their positioning and radar systems and taken a route Iran had not authorised, and that one had tried to cross “with US support”. Neither ship has been named, and no maritime authority has confirmed the incidents. This week the IRGC’s naval commander, Rear Admiral Ali Azmaei, warned that any vessel turning off its navigation systems would be treated as “hostile”.

Iran’s army said separately that two tankers caught fire on Thursday and Friday inside what Tehran calls its “prohibited zone” in the Gulf of Oman. A tug was reported hit by two projectiles off Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates, with one person slightly injured.

The strait, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passed before the war, has been all but shut. Data firm Kpler counted about 20.8 million barrels moving through it on 8 October, and only 2.9 million on 11 October. Iran has demanded that ships seek its permission since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, and the US has answered with a naval blockade of Iranian oil exports.

Washington and Moscow

US President Donald Trump told Newsmax he had ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran, was not considering ground troops and expected a deal to end the war after the 3 November midterm elections. US Central Command said the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, with about 5,000 sailors and other personnel, was back in the Arabian Sea after a port visit to Thailand.

In Israel, Channel 12 said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had discussed possible military action against Iran with Secretary of State Marco Rubio by phone, with officials saying the situation did not yet call for immediate action. Lebanon’s foreign minister, Youssef Raji, urged Iran to “cease their aggressions against the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Jordan.”

Diplomacy moves to Tehran on Monday, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due for talks with Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The India angle

The disruption has fed straight into India’s fuel costs: the country’s crude import bill rose to $90.6 billion in April-September, up 46.3 per cent, on barely changed volumes. Two Indian crew of the tanker MT Petro Dolphin, Bir Bahadur Yadav and Amit Singh, have been missing since a drone hit the ship off Oman a week ago.