Iran and Oman have moved a step closer to an agreement on the future management of the Strait of Hormuz. As the only two countries with coastlines on the strategically vital waterway, they have reportedly reached a preliminary understanding on new shipping routes, while negotiations on other elements of the proposal are at an advanced stage.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majid al-Ansari announced the progress on Tuesday, saying that he had received positive feedback from both countries. "As mediators, we want the Strait of Hormuz reopened as soon as possible", he added.
Parallel Negotiations
Progress in talks with Oman, however, will not by itself reopen the strait.
Tehran continues to link the restoration of maritime traffic to separate negotiations with the United States, which Iranian officials have suggested could stretch into 2029, after the next US presidential inauguration.
That position was reiterated this week by Mohammad Reza Naqdi, senior adviser to the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, during an interview with PBS NewsHour.
"One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost", he said. "We have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security".
Iran continues to insist that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the United States ends what Tehran describes as its naval blockade.
Washington has given no indication that it intends to do so. US Central Command said this week that maritime operations remain fully in effect after US forces rerouted 55 tankers, neutralized three vessels and boarded two others.
President Donald Trump struck a similarly defiant tone on Truth Social.
"The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, “A WALL OF STEEL”, and there is nothing Iran can do about it", he wrote.
Iranian officials rejected Trump's claim almost immediately.
The newly created Persian Gulf Strait Administration (PGSA) responded on X that optimistic rhetoric from Washington had not altered the reality on the ground.
"Claims and repeated posts by US officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran's conditions are accepted", the Times of Oman quoted the authority as saying.
Competing Narratives
The Times of Oman also published a commentary by analyst Sadik Mohammed Said al-Lawati, who argued that recent developments amount to a strategic setback for Washington.
Citing The Wall Street Journal, he wrote that Trump had abandoned the original fourteen conditions his administration set at the outset of the conflict and was now focused primarily on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
"Today, after a long series of economic warfare, sanctions, and military confrontations, Trump has reduced all those stringent conditions to a single demand: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz", al-Lawati wrote.
He argued that this amounted to a tacit admission that Washington had scaled back its original objectives.
"If Trump truly controls the strait, how can he demand that Iran open it?" he asked.
The pro-government Tehran Times has advanced a similar argument, claiming that the United States has shifted its attention from military objectives to helping regional allies reroute oil exports through alternative pipeline networks.
The newspaper also argued that Washington is becoming increasingly isolated after several European NATO members declined to participate in escort missions through the Strait of Hormuz.
Such rhetoric is hardly surprising from Iranian state media. More noteworthy, however, is that similar observations are increasingly appearing in Oman, a country that has long maintained its role as a neutral intermediary between Tehran and Washington.
The Price of Reopening the Strait
War reparations have also emerged as a major sticking point.
Last week, Iranian officials again listed compensation for wartime damage among the conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, alongside lifting sanctions, ending the naval blockade, withdrawing US forces from the vicinity of Iranian territory, unfreezing Iranian assets and halting attacks on Tehran's regional allies.
A new demand has since been added: reopening Iranian ports, which were closed only after the blockade began.
Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said over the weekend that Tehran would not reopen the strait without compensation.
Other Iranian officials struck a similar tone. Revolutionary Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi said the agreement with Oman alone would not reopen the waterway, while Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi likewise stressed that wider political issues remained unresolved.
Trump responded by reversing the argument.
"We're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period", he said at the White House, adding that Iran should compensate both civilian victims and members of the US armed forces.
Reuters noted that an agreement with Oman would give Tehran greater influence over the Strait of Hormuz than it had before the conflict began.
Araghchi's spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, nevertheless described the negotiations with Muscat as purely technical. According to him, the talks, held in Pakistan, are proceeding "smoothly and constructively", with both sides having already agreed on a new traffic-separation scheme for shipping.
He added that the agreement would include service charges covering tanker protection, environmental safeguards, maritime services and insurance.
The United States has repeatedly rejected the introduction of transit fees.
Baghaei defended the proposal in a post on X, arguing that recent environmental damage highlighted the need for such funding. He pointed to the tanker Caroline Bezengi, which recently ran aground off the Omani coast, causing an oil spill that reportedly spread over 2,000 square kilometers and reached waters near Iran's Qeshm Island.
"Who bears responsibility for compensating these damages?" he asked. "Is it the nations that consume the inexpensive energy exported from our region, the shipping insurers, or the aggressors and their partners who have transformed the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman into a theater for military operations and the testing of highly destructive weaponry?"