Iran and Oman are close to an agreement on a temporary shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says, while cautioning that the reopening of the strategic waterway remains subject to other conditions.
“Negotiations with Oman on the legal mechanism and management of the Strait of Hormuz, including the designation of a shipping route, are underway and we are very close to an agreement,” Araghchi told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference by President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday.
He said Iranian and Omani military and naval forces had held talks based on existing maps and that a new route would be determined once those discussions were concluded.
Araghchi said the previously used traffic separation scheme (TSS) was no longer acceptable to Iran and that a new one would need to be established. He added that such a mechanism involves “extensive technical and legal complexities.”
“For now, we are talking about a temporary route,” he said, adding that it would serve as the basis for a permanent route.
Araghchi said it was the United States that violated the Islamabad memorandum of understanding, despite Iran implementing its fifth clause and helping traffic restore to 60% of normal levels within two weeks, with a full return to normal expected within a month. He said Washington then sought to establish new shipping routes through the Strait despite Iranian warnings, undermining Iran’s management of the waterway.
Separately, Araghchi said Iran’s share of the Caspian Sea was not addressed in the convention on the waterway’s legal status because disputes over baselines and seabed division had been left to bilateral and trilateral negotiations.
He said the convention had been submitted to Iran’s parliament in 2018 and 2019 and that its ratification remained subject to parliamentary approval.
He stressed that the convention provides that no foreign military forces would be present in the Caspian Sea.
Source: IRNA