A senior Iranian official told Reuters on 22 September that Iran can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts the blockade of Iranian ports [1]. The statement attached a specific performance period to reopening for the first time, converting the strait from a standing condition into a dated transaction. No American official responded through the data cutoff [1]. President Masoud Pezeshkian departed Tehran for the UN General Assembly the same morning, vowing to firmly defend Iran's positions; he is the highest-ranking Iranian official on US soil since the war began [1].

Shipping data remains deeply contradictory. Bloomberg reported crude and LNG flows through Hormuz reached a six-month high, with Middle East oil averaging 17.1 million barrels per day over the preceding ten days [1]. Independent vessel counts tell a different story: Al Jazeera's count of 12 commodity vessel transits over the weekend of 19-20 September versus 35 the prior weekend, and Kpler data placing the 10-day average at 13 vessels per day against a pre-war baseline of roughly 85 per day [2]. Two tankers were struck in the strait on 21 September per UKMTO [1].

The insurance-based closure remains operative. Actual oil passage cannot be fully confirmed from visible counts alone, and the divergence between US-claimed escorted volumes and tracker-recorded transits persists without corroboration [2]. JMIC's SEVERE risk rating from 13 September stood with no update published [1].