Iran says US reply on reopening Hormuz falls short, warns Gulf data centres

Iran has rejected the latest US reply to its terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, saying Washington has gone only part of the way. Mohsen Rezaei, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday that the US response was “insufficient” and that no talks would begin until all of Tehran’s conditions were met.

Iran sent seven conditions to Washington about two weeks ago, through Pakistan, Qatar and Iraq. The US replied through Qatari intermediaries. Rezaei told state media that the Americans had “accepted some of our conditions, while others remain unclear”, and that Iran was “no longer in the process of responding to the Americans”. Without the conditions, he said, “neither will the Strait of Hormuz be opened to them, nor will there be any negotiations.”

Neither side has made the conditions public. The White House did not immediately comment.

A warning to the Gulf

Rezaei, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, also widened the list of possible targets. If intense fighting resumes, he said, “cables, data centers, AI facilities and other sites in the region” could be hit.

The Guards’ navy separately warned that any ship in the strait that switches off its navigation and identification systems would be “identified as hostile”. Attacks on ships passing through Hormuz have risen since Iran’s last proposal was rejected, and another was reported on Sunday. A drone struck a tanker at Sohar, off Oman, the same day; two of its Indian crew are still missing.

How the talks stalled

The war began on 28 February with US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Since then Iran has all but shut the strait, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes, by attacking ships and laying mines. The US has blockaded Iranian ports since July.

A memorandum of understanding signed in June collapsed within days, and large-scale US strikes resumed on 8 July. At the UN General Assembly last month Iran offered to reopen the strait within seven days if its conditions were met. Washington rejected that plan, as well as a proposal for Iran and Oman to manage the waterway jointly, saying ships must have free passage under international law.

Rezaei said Iran would not go back to the old format of talks, pointing to three earlier rounds that ended in US attacks. President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US would not attack Iran before the 3 November midterm elections, and that the blockade would “remain in full force and effect”.

Riyadh hit again

The war’s other front kept burning. A projectile struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Sunday, hitting the same passenger terminal where 12 people were killed on Saturday. Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said a Pakistani resident was killed and 11 people were injured. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have claimed both attacks.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree urged “everyone to take our warnings seriously” about flying in Saudi airspace. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey said in a joint statement that the attacks were “a blatant violation of international law”. Asked on Saturday whether the US would join Saudi strikes on the Houthis, Trump said: “We may. We’re going to look at it.”