Article 5 (memorandum)

Article 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, the Ceasefire framework Iran and the US signed on 15-16 June 2026 after 108 days of war, governs who controls the Strait of Hormuz. By 10 July it had become the sticking point stalling the Witkoff-Kushner Doha channel: Iran wants sole managerial authority over the strait, while the US wants unrestricted commercial transit.

With that direct channel frozen, Iran's Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran and Oman had reached a separate Hormuz-management arrangement based on the same memorandum, routing governance through Muscat rather than Washington. He had already accused Washington of breaching the memorandum days earlier. The clause sits inside a memorandum that Iran's own Parliament never ratified, and remains contested by both signatories.