Iran has set a series of conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including compensation for war damage, adding a fresh obstacle to efforts to restore access to the waterway that is vital to the global economy.
Since the United States and Israel struck Iran in late February, Tehran has effectively blockaded the strait. It is seeking to impose tolls on vessels using the passage and has attacked ships it accuses of trying to avoid its preferred route.
The attacks continued after the strait had been open to free transit before the war, ultimately contributing to the collapse of an April ceasefire.
Mediators have since pressed both sides to revive the terms of a memorandum agreed in June.
Security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr outlined several demands for the waterway to reopen, including an end to what he called the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq”.
He also called for the removal of a parallel US naval blockade, an end to sanctions, the unfreezing of Iranian assets and compensation for damage caused during the war, according to remarks reported by Tasnim news agency.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards separately said the reopening of Hormuz had “nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman”, declaring that the “enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait”.
Repeated attacks
The statements came as shipping traffic through Hormuz fell sharply. Iranian forces have targeted vessels they accuse of avoiding the route Tehran prefers through its territorial waters.
The United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry condemned what it described as a “hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) with a missile while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz, without causing casualties”.
Later, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that a ship had been struck by a projectile off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz. The impact sparked a fire that was later put out, with no casualties reported.
It was not immediately clear whether the two accounts involved the same vessel.
Continued attacks in the strait led to the collapse of an April ceasefire
ADNOC said on Friday that 15 of its vessels had come under attack in Hormuz since the war began, “including three vessels this week alone”.
Oman’s foreign ministry condemned “repeated attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz”, though it did not identify Iran as responsible.
It said negotiations over future navigation arrangements in the strait were continuing in a “positive and constructive atmosphere” and warned against actions that could undermine the progress made.
The previous Iran-US agreement, intended to provide a starting point for talks on a permanent settlement, said Iran and Oman would discuss future arrangements for the strait with other Gulf countries and “in line with the applicable international law”.
International law generally prohibits the imposition of tolls on waterways of this kind.
Security agreement
Turkey’s foreign minister said he expected Egypt to join a joint defence agreement with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that is intended to help stabilise the region. He described Egypt as a “natural partner on all issues”.
“I believe that at the next stage Egypt will also be among us in the alliance. We already act toward one another as if we were alliance members,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview.
Motorists drive vehicles past a billboard depicting Iran’s late supreme leader Ali Khamenei
A drone attack on US assets at an Egyptian port on the Mediterranean last month marked the first strike of its kind on Egyptian territory since the Iran war began.
Mr Fidan said the agreement was not aimed at any particular country.
“There is no common threat that we have put in writing,” he said, according to the news agency.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Friday that the pact treats an attack on one member as an attack on all, describing it as an effort “intended to strengthen collective deterrence”.
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