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The strait of Hormuz is Iran’s chief bargaining tool in the negotiations with the US and so it was always likely to be the greatest point of contention. Every inch of the 24-mile-wide waterway is being contested in a test of wills and patience.
For Iran, the continuation of the dispute is not a problem so long as it does not lose control.
Under the memorandum of understanding signed with Washington on 18 June, substantive talks over Iran’s nuclear programme do not need to start until the lifting of the blockade of the strait – something Iran is required to use only “its best endeavours” to achieve. Moreover, the longer the blockade lasts, the closer come the US midterm elections for Trump. Iran’s government may yet find itself in a reckoning with its inflation-ravaged electorate but no date for that is fixed.
Iran is adopting a maximalist interpretation of the memorandum, decreeing that it alone can lift the blockade. Jealously guarding this prerogative, it has been resisting the involvement of any other country or institution in opening the strait.
For that reason, Iran rejected the suggestion of a southern route close to the coast of Oman developed with the UN’s International Maritime Organization. The idea was that, as the central route through the strait had been closed because of mines, two new shipping lanes could be opened, one in Omani waters overseen by the US Joint Maritime Information Center, and one farther north close to Iran. The IMO thought it had Iran’s agreement for the proposal.
But either different parts of the Iranian regime adopted different positions or the IMO misunderstood Iran’s flexibility. Either way the Iranian attack on a Singaporean ship passing through the southern route on Thursday led the IMO to abandon the plan.
For Iran, losing the strait card would mean returning to negotiations on prewar terms and losing an important strategic tool. At a news conference in Baghdad the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “Any attempt to adopt new or separate arrangements from those currently being pursued by the Islamic Republic will only lead to further complications, delays in reopening the strait of Hormuz and an increase in tensions.”
But the row over the southern route – likely to be discussed in talks in Doha – has the potential to overshadow the search for a long-term solution to the management of the strait – a solution that has been worked up in considerable legal detail by Oman over the past two months. The plan has been crafted with the aim of meeting the requirements of international law and also securing Iran’s eventual support.
But Oman, a neutral nation by temperament and practice, is in a delicate diplomat spot. It knows that if it ignores Iran’s objections, Tehran is less likely to agree to Oman’s plan for the future of the strait. But if Oman does not take the initiative in helping the humanitarian operation to release thousands of trapped sailors, the less likely it is that its proposals for the strait will be accepted by the region or by the UN – and the more likely it is the US will return to all-out war.
The very fact that Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, held joint discussions in Muscat with Oman’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Abdulaziz al-Hinai, is a tacit acknowledgment by Tehran that it does not have sole decision-making powers in the strait’s future management.
What Oman has tried to do is construct a management system that will ensure littoral states receive income from commercial shipping passing through the strait but the income would come as much as possible in the voluntary contributions, or payments for specific navigational services made by trade groups, ships or states.
The Omani foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, explained: “We are not in favour of imposing tolls on passage through the strait of Hormuz, which is prohibited internationally – whereas service fees are legal, and discussions are currently under way with the Iranian side concerning them.” It is a distinction with a difference, and one that has been developed with some of the best UK commercial legal advice.
Article 26 of the law of the sea expressly forbids payment for mere passage but article 43 permits user states and strait states to fund cooperatively the provision of maritime services, including a port call or service used.
This point will have been made by the sultan of Oman during his meeting with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Monday. In theory, Macron and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, have a naval taskforce ready to set sail to police an agreement on freedom of navigation. The sultan is likely to have argued that if the west adopts Oman’s plan, there will be no need for such a force.
