Oman caught – Iran says it is coordinating with Oman over how the Strait of Hormuz could be managed after a blockade enters its tenth week, including plans that would charge fees for commercial shipping. The idea clashes with US insistence that there can be no toll connecte
Oman is being pulled into the middle of a dispute that has already shut down the Strait of Hormuz in practice for weeks—and it is now facing a direct question: whether it will back a future management plan that would treat the waterway as a fee-earning corridor controlled by Tehran and Musandam.
The stakes are immediate. The Musandam exclave sits just south of the contested strait that normally carries a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil traffic, but the waterway has been blockaded for 10 weeks since the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February.
On Friday, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi described the strait as exclusively Omani-Iranian space.. “The strait is located in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman,” he said.. “There is no international waters in between.” He added that Iran was coordinating with Oman about the future management of the strait. including Tehran’s plan to impose fees on commercial shipping.
So far. Oman has said nothing about Iran’s reported direction to charge a fee or its request for details on the nationality of all ships passing through the waterway.. That silence comes as diplomats press for a path to reopen shipping without turning the corridor into a payment gate controlled by one side.
Western diplomats argue that Iran’s proposals for permanent management are unlawful because they would impose tolls on commercial shipping and would allow Iran to choose which ships get passage—potentially based on the nationality of ownership.. A further complication lies in how payment would work.. A requirement that every ship set up a rial account to pay for services would likely collide with UN sanctions that prohibit money being sent to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Alongside the Iranian plan. a rival approach built around freedom of navigation has been prepared by France and the UK and has the support of most Gulf states.. British officials including the Foreign Office’s political director. Lord Llewellyn. have recently been in Muscat. and the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization. Arsenio Dominguez. has also been in Muscat.. The legal fight over whether coastal states can impose tolls sits at the heart of the deadlock—both over how to reopen the strait and over whether Iran’s proposed restriction of navigation is illegal and could set a precedent for other waterways.
Iran’s legal position turns on the long paperwork history around the UN convention on the law of the sea.. Iran became a signatory to the UN convention on the law of the sea (Unclos) in 1982. very soon after the 1979 revolution. but never ratified the treaty.. From Iran’s perspective. that means it is not bound by the treaty’s transit passage rules underpinning freedom of navigation. but instead by customary international law. including a more restrictive right of innocent passage.
Iran says even if Unclos were binding, the enhanced transit passage right for ships of particular nations is conditional. Passage, Tehran argues, can be restricted in the event of any threat or use of force against “sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal states”.
Tehran framed the conflict from the start differently. saying the southern shore of the strait—including the United Arab Emirates—was used by the US to arm American bases to attack Iran.. Iran has also said it hopes the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA). a government agency it established on 5 May. will become a profitable revenue-generating stream.
The details of how the PGSA would operate are already spelled out by its own rules.. The PGSA says ships now have to register by email with its office to receive routing information and permission to pass the strait.. Payment would be required in Iran’s national currency. and the fee is being set at roughly a dollar a barrel.
But there is a grey area that leaves room for tension between “services” and “tolls.” It is unclear whether Iran can charge fees only in return for providing services, or whether ships would effectively be compelled to use those services—turning the service fee into a toll.
The dispute over fees has also been carried into statements about China’s role.. Donald Trump at his summit in Beijing claimed that China— which imports almost 45% of Iran’s oil production through the strait—agreed with the US that there could be no tolls and no restrictions.. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has also said China does not favour tolls.
China’s response is different in tone. The Chinese foreign ministry said it simply wanted the blockades to end and that the cause of the closure was the US-Israel war on Iran.
Even so, the IRGC briefed on Thursday that after talks with China’s ambassador to Iran, a large group of Chinese oil tankers were being let through the strait by Tehran and that these ships had agreed to be subject to the Iranian regime. The briefing did not reveal whether a fee was paid by China.
When the US imposed its blockade of Iranian ports. Trump said: “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.” That line suggests US willingness to block shipping in response to any payment. though it would be hard to confirm. in practice. whether any toll or fee was actually paid at the moment ships cross.
For the United Arab Emirates, the legal and security concerns are shaped by its own position about defensive measures.. The UAE said all actions it had taken came within its framework of defensive measures aimed at protecting its sovereignty. civilians and vital infrastructure. according to a statement from its foreign ministry.. The statement on Saturday came after the Wall Street Journal published a story on Monday saying the UAE carried out military operations on Iran in early April.. That news is likely to make the UAE an even clearer target for Iran if the ceasefire is abandoned and the US and Iran restart the conflict.. The UAE ministry’s statement did not explicitly refer to the reported strikes on Iran.
The pattern of statements is hard to miss: Iran ties reopening and ship movement to coordination with Oman and to its PGSA registration. while the US and its allies insist any permanent arrangement that includes payments to Iran is unacceptable.. The legal disagreement then mirrors that clash. with Iran relying on its Unclos position to argue for narrower passage rights. while others focus on tolling and control over who is allowed through.
For now, Oman sits at the center of the dispute—territorially close to the contested strait, diplomatically visited by figures from London, and still silent about whether it will support a mechanism that Iran describes as a fee-based management system.
Oman Musandam Strait of Hormuz Iran US Iran fees PGSA UN sanctions Unclos freedom of navigation UAE