Iran said on Friday that it was coordinating with Oman over the future management of the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran pushes ahead with plans to impose fees on commercial shipping passing through the chokepoint. Abbas Araghchi said in India that the strait sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman and that there are no international waters in between.
The comments sharpen a dispute over one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, which normally carries a fifth of global seaborne oil traffic. Iran has already moved to formalize its position by establishing the Persian Gulf Strait Authority on 5 May, a step that suggests Tehran wants more than a symbolic say in how vessels move through the waterway.
Oman has so far stayed silent on Iran’s plan to charge a fee and to require details on the nationality of all ships passing through the strait. That silence matters because Muscat sits at the center of any practical arrangement for the waterway, and because Iran says it is coordinating with Oman even as it pursues a structure that would give it leverage over commercial traffic.
The stakes are higher because the Strait of Hormuz has been blockaded for 10 weeks since the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February. The United States has repeatedly said there can be no permanent solution to the blockade that involves paying a toll to Iran, and Western diplomats say Iranian proposals for permanent management of the strait are unlawful because they would impose charges on shipping and could let Tehran decide which ships are allowed through.
Those diplomats also say a requirement for every ship to set up a rial account to pay for services would likely run into UN sanctions that prohibit money being sent to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. France and the United Kingdom have prepared a rival plan based on freedom of navigation, and that proposal has been put to Oman with the support of most Gulf states.
British officials, including Lord Llewellyn, have recently been in Muscat, along with the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, Arsenio Dominguez. Their visits underline how quickly the issue has moved from a legal argument to a diplomatic contest over who gets to shape the rules of a passage that has long been vulnerable to pressure and blockade.
Iran, for its part, argues that it is not bound by the transit passage rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea because it signed the treaty in 1982 but never ratified it. Tehran also said at the outset of the conflict that the southern shore of the strait, including the United Arab Emirates, was used by the United States to arm American bases to attack Iran, a claim that reflects how the waterway has become part of a broader security confrontation.
The result is a negotiation with little room for compromise. Iran wants a revenue-generating role for the new authority it created in May, while Western governments are trying to preserve free passage through a strait that is central to global energy trade. For now, Oman’s next move may matter as much as Iran’s, because any lasting arrangement will have to pass through Muscat before it can reach the sea.
