By the Editorial Team of TLF
Iran’s security chief says Tehran has delivered seven conditions to mediators and will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed until the United States meets them. He also warns neighbouring countries against restricting Iranian flights.
Washington Must Act First
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, set out a stark sequence for ending the confrontation with Washington in a state television interview on 23 September: the United States must act first; only then will Iran consider reopening the Strait of Hormuz and entering negotiations.
“Talk alone is enough. Now we must act,” he said, according to the published Persian account of the interview. Rezaei said Iran had seven conditions, drawn up in writing and conveyed through mediators including Pakistan and Qatar. He did not publish the complete list. He insisted that passing messages through intermediaries should not be mistaken for negotiations or a change in Tehran’s position.
If Washington does not fulfil Iran’s conditions, he said, there will be neither talks nor a reopening of Hormuz. That distinction matters as diplomatic contacts resume. A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Tehran and Washington remain far apart, but that diplomacy is continuing.
Rezaei offered a narrower public description: Iran has communicated its demands and is waiting for American action. Messages are passing between the sides, but the meaning of “talks” remains contested.
Hormuz As A Guarantee
For Rezaei, the Strait of Hormuz is the means of enforcing that sequence. He called it a guarantee in Iran’s new diplomatic approach and an instrument for securing the country’s rights. In a 19 September interview with Al Jazeera, he identified an end to the war on all fronts, the release of frozen Iranian funds and an end to the naval blockade among Tehran’s demands.
His latest insistence that Iran has seven conditions shows that those three are not the full public account of its proposal. Rezaei extended his warning beyond the maritime dispute. Responding to US measures against Iranian aviation, he cautioned neighbouring states against blocking Iranian flights or joining Washington’s restrictions. If they did, he said, their own airports would be unable to operate flights.
Reuters reported the warning as the United States prepared secondary sanctions against countries allowing Iranian flights. Rezaei did not specify how Iran would carry out the threat. The interview was also a show of military defiance following President Donald Trump’s UN speech.
Rezaei claimed Iranian successes against US aircraft, naval assets and regional facilities, including possession of an American submersible that Iran is reverse engineering. These are his claims; the published interview does not independently establish them. His diplomatic message was clearer: Tehran intends to retain pressure through Hormuz while demanding concrete US concessions before formal negotiations.
Who Is Mohsen Rezaei?
Born in 1954 in Iran’s Khuzestan province, Rezaei became involved in opposition to the shah as a young man. After the 1979 revolution, he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and became its commander in 1981, at 27.
He led the force until 1997, including through most of the Iran–Iraq war, as its ground, naval and air capabilities expanded. His wartime record remains contested in Iran, particularly over offensives that caused heavy Iranian casualties, as Reuters noted in its profile.
Rezaei subsequently served for more than two decades as secretary of the Expediency Council, earned a doctorate in economics and repeatedly sought the presidency. He was vice president for economic affairs under Ebrahim Raisi from 2021 to 2023.
In 2026, he became military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and, in August, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. His international record carries a separate controversy.
At Argentina’s request, INTERPOL approved a Red Notice bearing Rezaei’s name in connection with the investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. A Red Notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest someone, not a finding of guilt. The US Treasury listed Rezaei under Iran-related sanctions in January 2020.
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