18MAY

Iran claims sole control of Hormuz

3 min read

14:44UTC

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared from Baghdad that Iran would hold sole oversight of the Strait of Hormuz for 30 days, then demanded a single coastal corridor.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Iran and the US read Article 5 to opposite ends, so every Hormuz crossing breaks the deal for one side.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared from Baghdad on 28 June, the same day Iran struck Kuwait and Bahrain, that Iran would hold "sole oversight and management" of the Strait of Hormuz for 30 days⁠¹. A day later Washington said commercial traffic could pass the strait unhindered. On 30 June Iran demanded a single corridor along its own coastline and threatened to obstruct ships using any other route⁠².

Both sides cite the same text. Article 5 of the 16 June MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) promises safe passage at no charge for 60 days and mine clearance inside the same window Iran now claims to police; Iran reads that as its right to run the strait during the clearance period, and Washington reads it as a guarantee of open routing⁠³. Every routing decision now breaks the agreement by one reading or the other, which keeps insurers' war-risk cover suspended and tankers waiting.

The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) had already rejected the Oman-coordinated southern lane; the tankers Ever Lovely and Kiku were struck while using exactly that route, not an Iranian corridor⁠⁴. Iran and Oman set up a bilateral fee committee for the strait on 23 June, yet the corridor stays contested, which is why the ceasefire keeps breaking on the water.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, announced on 28 June 2026 from Baghdad, the capital of neighbouring Iraq, that Iran would take sole responsibility for managing the strait of Hormuz for 30 days. the strait of Hormuz is the narrow gap between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula that oil tankers must pass through to reach the open ocean from The Persian Gulf. Two days later, on 30 June, Iran went further, insisting that all ships use only a single shipping lane close to Iran's own coastline. Ships using any other route, Tehran warned, would be at risk. The June peace agreement between the US and Iran contains a clause, called Article 5, that deals with the strait during the period when sea mines are being cleared. The US reads that clause as guaranteeing ships can sail freely by any safe route. Iran reads it as giving Tehran the right to manage traffic during the mine-clearance period. Because neither side has changed its reading, insurers covering commercial shipping against war damage have not reinstated cover, meaning most shipping companies are keeping their vessels out of the strait regardless of what either government says.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Iran never ratified the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which establishes transit passage rights through international straits as a customary norm that cannot be suspended by the adjacent coastal state.

Tehran instead relies on its own maritime law, updated in 2024, which claims jurisdiction over the strait of Hormuz based on Iran's internal continental shelf claims and frames the right to regulate 'hostile-linked vessels' broadly enough to cover any flag state that has sanctioned Iran. This legal asymmetry gives Iran a domestic legal basis for sole-corridor control that it need not breach UNCLOS to assert, because it never accepted UNCLOS.

Article 5 of the Islamabad MoU was drafted in the shuttle-mediation format, with separate rooms and Qatari and Pakistani relays, meaning both parties agreed to language without reconciling their baseline legal positions on Hormuz governance. The result is a text whose routing provisions each side reads as confirming its own prior stance, making the dispute non-resolvable by reference to the agreement both signed.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Lloyd's of London war-risk rates stay suspended and tankers remain outside the strait for as long as the Article 5 routing contradiction is unresolved, regardless of the verbal stand-down.
Immediate · Reported
Risk
Iran's 30 June single-corridor demand gives the IRGC a formal justification to strike any vessel using an alternative route, including the Oman-coordinated southern lane already used by the Ever Lovely and Kiku before their attacks.
Immediate · Reported
Precedent
Araghchi's declaration from Baghdad, not from Tehran, signals Iran is using regional diplomatic forums to assert Hormuz claims without the domestic political cost of a formal Majlis position, a pattern that could be replicated for future jurisdictional assertions.
Medium term · Suggested

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-left-leaning sources from Qatar

Qatar×3

Primary parallel: During the 1979-1981 Iranian hostage crisis, Iran asserted maximalist legal claims, ownership of the US Embassy under revolutionary law, while using Algerian intermediaries to negotiate a settlement within a framework both sides publicly contested.

The Algiers Accords ultimately produced a resolution through indirect mediation without either party publicly conceding its legal position. Araghchi's sole-oversight claim follows the same structural pattern: an asserted legal maximum maintained publicly while Doha mediators work toward a practical corridor arrangement.

Counter-parallel: The 1980s Tanker War saw Iran assert de facto transit control and levy unofficial charges on neutral vessels without a clear legal basis. The US Navy enforced open navigation by direct force under Operation Earnest Will from 1987 to 1988, reflagging Kuwaiti tankers and convoying them through the strait. That precedent shows the US will ultimately act militarily rather than accept Iranian de facto corridor control indefinitely if diplomatic resolution fails.

Consensus view: The International Chamber of Shipping and maritime law advisers at the Lloyd's List Intelligence unit assessed Araghchi's sole-oversight declaration as exploiting a genuine textual gap: Article 5 of the June MoU assigns Iran the 30-day demining management role but does not specify navigation routing authority.

Iran is using that ambiguity to claim unilateral corridor-designation rights, making every tanker that uses a non-Iranian route a potential MoU breach from Tehran's perspective. Every routing decision thus breaks the agreement by one reading or the other, a situation that cannot be resolved by reference to the document itself.

Counter-view: Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and researchers at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai argued the sole-oversight claim is primarily a negotiating posture for the Doha shuttle rather than an operational commitment: by asserting maximum jurisdictional reach, Iran creates something to concede in exchange for sanctions relief or asset unfreezing.

The IRGC's prior physical rejection of the Oman-coordinated corridor, before Araghchi's verbal declaration, means the military posture is already harder than the civilian framing, suggesting the declaration follows rather than directs IRGC action.

Key tension: Whether Article 5 routing authority can be resolved through Doha shuttle diplomacy or requires a new written text signed in the same room by both parties, an outcome neither government has demonstrated willingness to produce.

First Reported In

Update #141 · Iran hits two US bases; Trump pulls back

Al Jazeera· 30 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Oil barely moves on the stand-down

Oil's muted 1.3% bounce on the stand-down reflected continued uncertainty from the Hormuz governance deadlock keeping war-risk insurance suspended.

Occurred 28 Jun 2026

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This Event

Iran claims sole control of Hormuz

Iran and the US read the same Article 5 to opposite ends, so every tanker routing breaks the agreement by one reading and war-risk cover stays suspended.

Led to

IRGC rejects the Oman Hormuz route

Araghchi's sole-oversight declaration and Iran's single-corridor demand escalated from the IRGC's prior rejection of the Oman-coordinated corridor.

Occurred 25 Jun 2026

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Iran and Oman claim the strait

The Iran-Oman bilateral fee committee created on 23 June failed to resolve routing disputes, which Araghchi's sole-oversight claim then sharpened.

Occurred 23 Jun 2026

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Oman's Hormuz fee splits its authors

Oman's proposal and the joint fee committee undercut Araghchi's claim of Iran's sole Hormuz oversight.

Occurred 30 Jun 2026

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Different Perspectives

Wang Yi

China's foreign minister and Djibouti's issued a joint communique on 21 October saying the war should not reach the Horn of Africa and stressing free navigation through Bab al-Mandeb. The text names neither Iran nor the Houthis, and Djibouti hosts China's only overseas military base, opposite the Yemeni coast.

Ministry of External Affairs

India's foreign ministry called the attacks on Saudi civilian and energy sites "unacceptable" on 22 October and said they must stop at once. An Indian died at Dammam, Indians were injured there and at Shaybah, and about 4,000 Umrah pilgrims remain stranded by one MP's count.

Iraq

Iraq closed the al-Sheeb crossing with Iran to travellers and trucks from 21 October and said other crossings would close gradually. Unlike September's closure, which ended on a staged timetable, this one has none, and Iran's interior ministry said it received no notice.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Egypt's president said on 21 October that Cairo's support would "defend Saudi territory, and does not include an attack on Yemen". Araghchi warned that Egyptian involvement would further complicate the situation, and Cairo's limit matches the one Ankara set on 8 October against attacking another state's soil.

UK Ministry of Defence

The MoD said on 20 October that RAF Typhoons over Saudi Arabia will not strike the Houthis, but extended tanker support to Saudi operations including against Houthi targets in Yemen. The tanker line sets no limit on strikes, so British aircraft may now refuel Saudi jets on bombing runs.

Turkey

Ankara sent the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement to parliament around 20 October, and its published text treats an attack on one party as an attack on all. Article 16 brings it into force only on the last ratification, so the 5 October invocation in Riyadh could not yet bind Turkey.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.