Pakistan secures Iran deal to send 20 ships through Strait of Hormuz

Sunday March 29, 2026

Iran’s decision to permit the transits marks a notable easing of pressure on the waterway, with Dar announcing on Saturday that two ships would be allowed through each day under the arrangement.

He called the step “a harbinger of peace,” praising it as a “welcome and constructive gesture” that could help steady a region already on edge.

His message was also carefully aimed beyond Tehran and Islamabad. Dar addressed the post directly to US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi, underscoring that Pakistan sees the development as part of broader diplomacy, not merely a shipping matter.

The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed since the United States and Israel carried out coordinated strikes on Iran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and setting off a war that has left about 2,000 Iranians and more than 1,100 people in Lebanon dead, while rattling financial markets around the world.

“The Strait of Hormuz is not an oil chokepoint,” former Qatari minister Mohammed Al-Hashemi wrote in a column for Al Jazeera this week. “It is the aortic valve of globalised production – and like any valve, when it fails, the entire circulatory system collapses.”

With an estimated 2,000 vessels now trapped on both sides of the narrow passage, oil prices have jumped beyond $100 a barrel, an increase of about 40 percent.

In the meantime, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has turned the strait into something closer to a controlled checkpoint. Vessels seeking to pass must provide cargo information, crew manifests and destination details to IRGC-approved intermediaries, obtain a clearance code and then travel under escort through Iranian territorial waters.

At least two ships have already paid for that access, with reports putting the cost at $2m per crossing, settled in Chinese yuan.

Iran’s parliament is now working on legislation that would make the system official, potentially turning the passage into a lasting source of income.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Friday that Malaysian vessels had been allowed to cross the strait, and he thanked Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Since the war began, only about 150 vessels have managed to make the journey, roughly equivalent to one ordinary day of traffic. Overall maritime movement through the waterway has fallen by 90 percent.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the head of the World Trade Organization, warned that global commerce was facing its “worst disruptions in the past 80 years”.

The announcement from Islamabad followed a busy week of diplomacy. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, spoke with US President Donald Trump on Sunday.

Dar also held separate conversations with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts.

Pakistan shares a 900km (560-mile) border with Iran.

“If the parties desire, Islamabad is always willing to host talks,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told Al Jazeera last week.

Trump, for his part, has been drawing attention to the strait in his own style.

At a Miami investor forum, he jokingly referred to it as the “Strait of Trump” before correcting himself. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake,” he told the audience.

Iran has said formal international recognition of its authority over the strait is a condition for ending the war. Its parliament is also drafting legislation to make toll collection permanent.

Sultan Al Jaber, an Emirati minister, described the bottleneck as “economic terrorism,” warning that “every nation pays the ransom at the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the pharmacy”.

Trump said Washington has paused strikes on Iranian power plants for five days, with that window set to expire on Saturday. Israel has said its own strikes will continue regardless.