Iran President Says Tehran Won’t Shy Away From Talks With US

The signal here is procedural rather than diplomatic: Tehran frames itself as ready to talk while the US is cast as the passive party, and the sequencing — a proposal, a formal reply, now a stated review of that reply — suggests a channel exists even as public rhetoric hardens. The Strait of Hormuz element is what makes this more than atmospherics, since any negotiation touching that chokepoint carries direct implications for oil flows and shipping risk. The open question is whether the talk track and the strike track continue in parallel, or whether one crowds out the other.