Iran said Wednesday it is finalizing a shipping-route agreement with Oman for the Strait of Hormuz, even as its own parliament reviews a plan to permanently ban vessels linked to the United States and Israel from the same waterway.
The IRGC did not need a formal legal declaration to make that closure effective.
The 60-vessel toll and the Mussafah 2 sinking are not just casualty figures; they are the reason insurers priced Hormuz transits as effectively uninsurable for much of the spring, which did more to choke off traffic in practice than any single Iranian military tactic could have accomplished on its own.
That leaves the toll-versus-fee question as a live fault line inside the emerging deal rather than a settled point, one that could resurface the moment the temporary corridors actually open and a shipping company gets an invoice it did not expect.
A two-to-four month temporary route, restricted to specific corridors and explicitly described by Iran's own deputy foreign minister as falling short of a full reopening, functions as a pressure-relief valve rather than a settlement.
Iran says it is finalizing a temporary Strait of Hormuz shipping agreement with Oman even as its parliament reviews a plan to permanently bar US and Israeli vessels and charge others fees of up to 7% of cargo value.