WorldMiddle East
Iran sends US a nuclear proposal through Qatar, but only after seven demands are met
Tehran says the offer will be discussed once Washington meets conditions that include lifting sanctions, freeing frozen assets and paying war reparations. The US is studying it.
Key points
- Iran has sent the US a nuclear proposal through Qatar, a senior Iranian official said.
- Talks on it will begin only after Washington meets Tehran's seven demands.
- For India, the stakes are oil through Hormuz and the Chabahar port.
Iran has sent the United States a proposal on its nuclear programme through Qatar, but says it will discuss it only after Washington meets seven demands, a senior Iranian official said on Thursday. The US is reviewing the offer. Its contents have not been made public.
The demands named so far are lifting US sanctions, releasing frozen Iranian assets and paying war reparations. Washington wants nuclear issues included in any first round of negotiations, and mediators have stepped up efforts amid fears the war could resume after the US midterm elections.
Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, set out the same line on a visit to Russia. “As long as they do not execute our seven conditions, we will neither open the Strait of Hormuz nor have negotiations,” he said. President Donald Trump has declined to rule out new strikes, saying the US was “locked and loaded if we have to do the rest of the Iran thing” and that Iran is “not going to have a nuclear weapon”.
Why India is watching
The Strait of Hormuz carries about half of India’s crude imports, roughly 2.5 million barrels a day of a total of about 5 million, according to the ship-tracking firm Kpler. With Tehran keeping the strait shut until its terms are met, the cost is felt in the import bill. “Even without a full blockade, higher freight, war-risk insurance and geopolitical premiums would lift landed costs,” Kpler analyst Sumit Ritolia has said.
India’s stake in Chabahar port, where it has invested about $120 million under a 10-year contract signed in 2024, also hangs on the talks. The US revoked India’s sanctions waiver for the port in September 2025 and later granted one that ran until April 2026. “Obviously, the current conflict is also a complicating factor,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in April.