Kazem Gharibabadi

Gharibabadi rejected Oman's voluntary-fee proposal for policing the Strait of Hormuz on 30 July, countering with a demand that Iran control not only its own territorial shipping lane but part of the lane on the opposite, Omani side. The move followed weeks of splits among the fee proposal's own authors over how any Hormuz policing arrangement should work, after Oman had handed Washington the plan on 30 June styled on the Malacca Strait's voluntary charges.

As Iran's deputy foreign minister for legal affairs, Gharibabadi is the official through whom Tehran's negotiating position on the strait passes, and his lane demand raised Iran's price for any routing deal well beyond a fee dispute into a question of territorial control.

At the Islamabad MOU signing on 14 June, Gharibabadi declared the text was drafted "in continued distrust" and named three preconditions for substantive talks: lifting the naval blockade, formally ending military operations, and releasing frozen Iranian funds. On 26 June he hardened that position further, setting two explicit conditions for any IAEA inspector return, a completed final agreement and termination of all sanctions, both unmet with no agreed timetable.

That sequencing leaves verification trailing any eventual deal rather than underpinning it, a structural choice that narrows what the 60-day MOU window agreed at Islamabad can realistically deliver.