(CNN) — Iran is finalizing a deal with Oman on new shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, but an agreement between the two coastal nations would not by itself reopen the waterway as US President Donald Trump hopes.
The talks are critical because they could resolve disputes over shipping arrangements that have disrupted global trade. But Iran says the United States must meet additional conditions before vessels can transit freely.
Here’s what we know about the deal and Iran’s demands from the US.
What Iran is saying about the potential agreement
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in an interview Wednesday that while Iran and Oman are close to finalizing a proposed framework, the agreement would not automatically reopen the waterway.
So far, the two countries have agreed on the geographical coordinates of a proposed safe shipping route in the strait, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Wednesday. But he tempered expectations by adding the qualification, “provided that certain third parties do not obstruct the process.”
Negotiations have continued for more than three weeks and produced broad agreement on proposed inbound and outbound shipping routes, Gharibabadi said. The talks also covered technical arrangements, the security and sovereignty of Iran and Oman, and a proposed joint coordination center to manage maritime traffic and collect information from vessels.
Under the proposed arrangement, temporary routes near Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz and through Omani territorial waters would close.
Parts of the new inbound and outbound corridors would pass through Iranian waters, marking a departure from a decades-old system under which commercial traffic traveled through Omani waters, Gharibabadi said.
The proposed route would initially operate for two to four months or possibly longer, he added. Its implementation would require a separate decision by Iran’s senior leadership.
Iran’s conditions for Hormuz reopening
Iran continues to blame Washington for the strait’s effective closure, citing Trump’s recent threats to restart attacks.
Gharibabadi spelled out Tehran’s demands to reopen the strait, saying the US must reverse actions it says violated previous commitments.
These include ending the naval blockade on Iranian ports, addressing sanctions that were reimposed on Iran when the truce collapsed – especially on the oil sector – and resuming negotiations over Tehran’s frozen assets. It also includes addressing the US’ “failure” to ensure stability in Lebanon as envisaged under the memorandum of understanding reached with Washington in June.
Asked if Iran is essentially implementing Article 5 of the June agreement, which committed Iran to using its “best efforts” to ensure safe commercial passage for 60 days, Gharibabadi said “No.”
“Article 5 only established guiding principles, not a final operational plan,” he said, adding that “the new Iran-Oman understanding is presented as an entirely new model reflecting today’s security environment rather than a continuation of the previous 60-year arrangement.”
This means that shipping routes through the strait will change, with a significant portion of commercial traffic transiting through Iranian territorial waters and the remainder through Omani waters, he said.
Gharibabadi said the arrangement reflects a new strategy for exercising “effective sovereignty” over the strait, while stressing that Iran does not intend to routinely close the waterway in peacetime.
Merging competing routes
There are, however, competing routes through the strait and what’s on the table appears to involve merging them – with Iran retaining a level of control that would be at odds with US wishes.
The negotiations should “establish Iranian arrangements because security, de-mining, and maritime services are handled by Iran,” according to Saeed Ajorlu, a member of Iran’s negotiating committee.
Ajorlu told Iranian state broadcaster IRIB this week that Tehran’s goal “is to set temporary arrangements” between one and three months “where Iran is dominant.”
This term, “where Iran is dominant” may not fly in Washington or Gulf capitals, however.
“The negotiations have focused on transforming the southern route, which passes through Omani waters, and the northern route, which passes through Iran’s territorial waters, into an intermediate route that serves the considerations and interests of both coastal states,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Baghaei earlier on Monday.
“We are now talking about a corridor that will have a two-way route, not two or three separate routes,” he said.
Baghaei, Ajorlu and every other Iranian official insist the legal regime at the strait will not return to its pre–war state, when no country controlled shipping through the critical waterway.
Control or supervision over the chokepoint has become just as much a red line for Tehran as the right to nuclear enrichment.
Hamid Reza Azizi, an expert and analyst on Iran, said that Iran’s primary objective is “control and management of the strait.”
“Iran wants complete oversight of who enters and exits the waterway – which is why it insists that even vessels using the Omani shipping lane coordinate their transit with Tehran,” he wrote on X.
What happens to the Iran-US MoU reached in June?
The prospect of such leverage over the strait would be unacceptable in Washington, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said any form of state control over international waters is against international law.
“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway,” he said recently, “charge a toll and if you don’t pay them blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent, which will repeat itself in other parts of the world,” he said last month.
Qatar suggested this week that negotiations were moving forward, but it’s hard to square the circle when the goals and demands of the two adversaries are so far apart.
Key questions remain: Will the Revolutionary Guards accept reduced control over the Strait of Hormuz, and under what conditions would it intercept vessels? Would reopening extend to foreign – including American – naval ships? How much information would Iran demand about ships’ cargoes and destinations?
It is also unclear where it would leave the US-Iran memorandum signed in June and declared dead a month later.
The June agreement left key provisions deliberately vague. Article 5 committed Iran to using its “best efforts” to ensure safe commercial passage for 60 days, while also saying Iran and Oman will “define the future administration and maritime services” in the strait.
Gharibabadi specifically said that “Article 5 only established guiding principles, not a final operational plan,” adding that “the new Iran-Oman understanding is presented as an entirely new model reflecting today’s security environment rather than a continuation of the previous 60-year arrangement.”
It also said that any future arrangement must be “in line with applicable international law.”
But that qualification resolved little. “Given the well-known disagreement between Iran and most of the world over what international law requires in the Strait of Hormuz, this formulation does little more than kick the can down the road,” noted the Lawfare blog.
Ultimately, Tehran “is seeking to convert the leverage it gained during the war into a durable political and institutional role in governing one of the world’s most strategically important waterways,” said Trita Parsi at the US foreign policy think tank, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“By embedding a lasting role in the governance of Hormuz, Iran could preserve much of the influence it gained during the war without relying on continual military coercion,” Parsi posted on X Wednesday.
That is a much greater gain than any fees or tolls it may want to collect at the chokepoint.
While agreement remains elusive, the world’s oil markets must confront draining crude reserves.
If the Strait of Hormuz were opened today, it could still take up to 18 months to replenish depleted inventories, Amin Nasser, chief executive of the world’s largest oil producer Saudi Aramco, said Tuesday.
For every day there is no agreement, some 15 million barrels of crude oil are not traveling through the narrow waterway to world markets.
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