Middle East crisis live: Iran ‘offers to end chokehold on strait of Hormuz’

Iran is offering to end its chokehold on the strait of Hormuz without addressing its nuclear program, two regional officials with knowledge of the proposal said Monday.

It comes as the country’s foreign minister made a visit to Russia he said was an opportunity to consult with Moscow regarding the war against Israel and the United States.

Iran also wants the US to end its blockade of the country as part of its proposal, said the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.

The new proposal, passed to the United States by Pakistan, likely won’t be supported by US president Donald Trump, who wants to end Iran’s atomic program as part of an overall deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz and make the ceasefire permanent.

“We have all the cards. If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us,” Trump said Sunday to Fox News Channel.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem on Monday rejected Lebanon’s planned direct talks with Israel, calling them a “grave sin” that will destabilise Lebanon.

“We categorically reject direct negotiations with Israel, and those in power should know that their actions will not benefit Lebanon or themselves,” Qassem said in a statement, calling on authorities to “back down from their grave sin that is putting Lebanon in a spiral of instability”.

“These direct negotiations and their outcomes are as if they do not exist for us, and they do not concern us in the slightest,” he added, saying “we will continue our defensive resistance for Lebanon and its people”.

“No matter how much the enemy threatens, we will not back down, we will not bow down, and we will not be defeated.”

Welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East.

Donald Trump has said Iran can telephone if it wants to negotiate an end to the war and that it must agree never to have a nuclear weapon, while Pakistan’s leaders have sought to revive the stalled peace talks between Washington and Tehran.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi talked to mediators Pakistan and Oman before travelling to Russia on Monday, where he is due to meet Vladimir Putin. Hopes of reviving peace efforts receded on Saturday when Trump scrapped a visit to Islamabad by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

“If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. “You know, there is a telephone. We have nice, secure lines.

“They know what has to be in the agreement,” the US president said. “It’s very simple: they cannot have a nuclear weapon, otherwise there’s no reason to meet.”

In a sign that peace efforts were ongoing, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said Tehran had sent “written messages” to the Americans via Pakistan outlining red lines, including nuclear issues and the strait of Hormuz. But Fars also said the messages were not part of formal negotiations.

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed 14 people and wounded 37 on Sunday, the health ministry said, amid an ongoing Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement.

In other key developments:

• Iran gave the US a new proposal on reopening the strait and ending the war, with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage, according to the news site Axios. The US state department and White House did not immediately comment on the Sunday report, which cited an unnamed US official and two sources.

• Araghchi’s talks with Pakistani officials on Sunday had included “implementing a new legal regime over the strait of Hormuz, receiving compensation, guaranteeing no renewed military aggression by warmongers and lifting the naval blockade”, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency. In the talks with Omani leader Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, Araghchi called for a regional security framework free of outside interference.

• Araghchi would meet with Putin “in continuation of the diplomatic jihad to advance the country’s interests and amid external threats”, Iran’s envoy in Russia, Kazem Jalali, said on X.

• Two US air force C-17s carrying security staff, equipment and vehicles used to protect US officials flew out of Pakistan after the latest diplomatic trip was called off, two Pakistani government sources told Reuters on Sunday.