RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesx whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info play video play video Video Duration 06 minutes 01 seconds play-arrow 06:01 Strait of Hormuz Becomes Leverage in US–Iran Power Struggle
Iran continues to deny claims by the United States that it controls the Strait of Hormuz as talks aimed at negotiating a peace deal between the two sides falter.
US President Donald Trump repeated his claim that the US is in “total control” of the critical waterway on Wednesday, but was met with angry denials from Iran, which has stated that it will not reopen the strait until demands regarding US aggression, reparations and sanctions are met.
“Claims and repeated posts by US officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality,” Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) posted on X on Wednesday.
“The Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted,” it added.
Here’s what we know about the latest developments in the strait, through which one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies are shipped during peacetime, and the prospects for ongoing talks.
Iranian forces are currently preventing ships that do not have its express approval from navigating through the narrow strait, which passes through territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
Despite Trump’s claim that the US has control over the strait, shipping traffic through the key waterway has dropped to a one-week low as a result of Iran’s blockade.
Meanwhile, the US is operating a naval blockade on Iranian ports both in and around the strait. On Tuesday, US forces targeted a Panama-flagged vessel they said was headed for an Iranian port, in the Gulf of Oman, and which they alleged had failed to respond to warnings.
On Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US “has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures”, including when launching its war on Iran, which it did alongside Israel with strikes on Tehran on February 28.
In a post on X, Araghchi said Washington’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz were “an even bigger miscalculation”.
“Worse than fake news is fake intelligence,” he said.
Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb, the commander of the paramilitary Basij Organisation – an affiliate of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – reiterated that the strait is “under Iran’s control and management”.
“Today you see that the Strait of Hormuz is under the management and control of the Islamic Republic, and our country continues on its path in complete security,” Taeb said on Thursday, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
“The Americans saw the power of the Islamic revolution,” he added.
Iran says it is not talking directly to the US about the strait. Instead, it says it is holding talks with Oman, which it proposes to share in the future management of the strait.
Following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US on June 17, under which Iran undertook to keep the strait open for 60 days, there were soon disagreements about control of the waterway and the routes that ships should take. Iran fired on some ships it said had not followed its permitted route, leading to a renewal of hostilities with the US.
Iran also disagreed with the US over whether it could charge fees to ships passing through the strait. As a result, the strait – which was fully and freely open to all shipping before the US launched its war on Iran – has become the main obstacle to the progression of wider peace talks.
Now, talks between Iran and Oman are aimed at ironing out these issues.
On Tuesday, Qatar said negotiations between Iran and Oman over the strait had reached “an advanced stage”.
“As mediators, we want the Strait of Hormuz reopened as soon as possible,” Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said during a news conference.
Negotiators are trying to reach a compromise that would allow commercial shipping to resume while addressing the security concerns of both Iran and Oman.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said talks with Oman are focused on “establishing safe inbound and outbound shipping lanes” that “uphold sovereign rights while also addressing the national security considerations of both Iran and Oman”.
Last week, Iran said it had agreed on the coordinates for these shipping lanes with Oman.
Iran says it is not speaking directly to the US because it has violated the June 17 MoU by restarting strikes on Iran in July.
Now, Pakistan is making efforts to mediate peace talks. It said on Tuesday it was working to bring the US and Iran “to the negotiating table”, as Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi held talks with senior Iranian officials in Tehran.
In April, the US and Iran held face-to-face negotiations, with US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf attending talks in Islamabad. On June 17, the two sides remotely signed the MoU, which was supposed to kick-start a 60-day negotiation process. However, various disagreements prevented that process from getting off the ground, and talks have stalled since then.
Alan Eyre, a distinguished diplomatic fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera earlier this month that the only important negotiations taking place right now are Iran-Oman talks over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran says it is not worth talking directly because it “can’t count on anything the US says”, Eyre said.
Commenting on the possibility of future talks between the longtime foes, Negar Mortazavi, senior fellow at the US-based Center for International Policy, said the key question is whether the escalatory rhetoric from both sides is “opening negotiating positions or actual red lines”.
“If both sides are prepared to compromise, there is still a path towards ending the conflict and reopening the strait,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
“If they are not, Hormuz could remain restricte...
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