Iran is jealously competing with Oman as decision-maker over strait of Hormuz

Oman proposed a southern route through the strait of Hormuz near its shoreline but the plan had to be abandoned after Iran attacked a ship using the route on Thursday. Photograph: Reuters View image in fullscreen Oman proposed a southern route through the strait of Hormuz near its shoreline but the plan had to be abandoned after Iran attacked a ship using the route on Thursday. Photograph: Reuters Analysis Iran is jealously competing with Oman as decision-maker over strait of Hormuz Patrick Wintour Tehran believes it should control the shipping route but its neighbour has its own plans for reopening it The strait of Hormuz is Iran’s chief bargaining tool in the negotiations with America and so it was always likely to be the greatest point of contention. Every metre of the 39-kilometre-wide waterway is being contested in a test of wills and patience. For Iran, the continuation of the dispute is not a problem so long as it does not lose control. Under the memorandum of understanding signed with Washington on 18 June, substantive talks over Iran’s nuclear programme do not need to start until the lifting of the blockade of the strait – something that Iran is required to use only “its best endeavours” to achieve. Moreover, the longer the blockade lasts, the closer come the US midterm elections for Trump. Iran’s government may yet find itself in a reckoning with its inflation-ravaged electorate but no date for that is fixed. Fresh hostilities in Gulf suggest US-Iran memorandum was too broadly worded Read more Iran is adopting a maximalist interpretation of the memorandum, decreeing that it alone can lift the blockade. Jealously guarding this prerogative, it has been resisting the involvement of any other country or institution in opening the strait. For that reason, Iran rejected the suggestion of a southern route close to the coast of Oman developed with the UN’s International Maritime Organization. The idea was that, as the central route through the strait had been closed because of mines, two new shipping lanes could be opened, one in Omani waters overseen by the US Joint Maritime Information Centre, and one farther north close to Iran. The IMO thought it had Iran’s agreement for the proposal. But either different parts of the Iranian regime adopted different positions or the IMO misunderstood Iran’s flexibility. Either way the Iranian attack on a Singaporean ship passing through the southern route on Thursday led the IMO to abandon the plan. For Iran, losing the strait card would mean returning to negotiations on prewar terms and losing an important strategic tool. At a news conference in Baghdad the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “Any attempt to adopt new or separate arrangements from those currently being pursued by the Islamic Republic will only lead to further complications, delays in reopening the strait of Hormuz and an increase in tensions.” But the row over the southern route – likely to be discussed in talks in Doha – has