Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York and conveyed Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian state television IRIB, cited by Middle East Eye: the immediate lifting of the naval blockade, the return of frozen Iranian assets and an end to the war on all resistance fronts.

The meeting confirms the direct contact that US president Donald Trump described earlier as a roughly three-hour meeting that was “very good” and “very productive”. The same day, the European Union (EU) high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Kaja Kallas, also met Araghchi to discuss free maritime passage in the strait and in Bab al-Mandab: “There were no tolls or fees for passage before the war, and there should be none after the war,” she wrote on X, according to Middle East Eye. Kallas said she also raised “domestic repression inside Iran, including the sharp rise in executions and death sentences”.