Iran gives Washington deadline as UK and Iranian ministers meet

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has met his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in New York, the first reported meeting between the two, according to The Guardian. The talks took place as Iranian officials warned that the United States had four to five days to respond to Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway is described in the supplied report as vital, but it does not provide further details about its current status or the conditions Iran has set.

The apparent deadline was disclosed by Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in a television interview on Wednesday evening. The report said it was previously unknown. It remains unclear what action Tehran would take if Washington did not respond to the preconditions.

Neither the supplied material nor the account of the meeting gives details of any commitments, proposals or outcome from the discussion between Miliband and Araghchi. The meeting and the warning came amid diplomatic activity involving Iran, the UK and the US. The available information does not state whether the British government endorsed Iran’s conditions, whether Washington had received them formally or how the deadline would affect shipping through the strait.

The Guardian report therefore records an apparent Iranian ultimatum alongside a ministerial meeting, while leaving the practical consequences and diplomatic response unresolved.