Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the United States met all of Tehran's conditions set out the day before, including compensation for war damages. Iran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait since the United States and Israel attacked in late February, and wants to charge tolls for passage, striking ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route. Continued attacks in the waterway, which was free to transit before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire. Mediators have urged both sides to return to the terms of a subsequent June memorandum that set out a path for peace talks. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said discussions with Oman over transit and management of the strait were "approaching the final stages,” but added that the reopening of Hormuz "is subject to other conditions and compensation for the violation" of the June agreement. He denied on Sunday that Iran was negotiating with the US, saying they were merely "exchanging messages" via intermediaries. Iran's security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr on Saturday laid out a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the "war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq.” He also demanded the lifting of a US counterblockade of Iranian ports, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, according to remarks reported by the Tasnim news agency. Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday said their strategy was to maintain the closure "until the enemy accepts all our conditions... the strait is now actually a theatre of war for us and not just a waterway.”
