19MAY

Iran and Oman draft Hormuz bilateral

2 min read

17:44UTC

Esmaeil Baghaei told his weekly Tehran press conference on 18 May that Iran and Oman were 'in continuous consultations' to design a new bilateral Hormuz transit mechanism, following an expert-level meeting in Muscat the previous week.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Muscat drafting a Hormuz mechanism with Tehran would convert a unilateral toll into a treaty Western planners must negotiate around.

At his weekly Tehran press conference on 18 May 2026, Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said Iran and Oman were 'in continuous consultations' on a bilateral Hormuz transit mechanism, after an expert-level technical meeting in Muscat the previous week, Euronews reported ¹. Baghaei's weekly briefing is the primary on-the-record channel for Iran's diplomatic positions; this one extended a bilateral channel Tehran had only previously disclosed in the context of guiding Indian vessels through Hormuz minefields .

Oman shares administration of the strait of Hormuz with Iran under a 1968 bilateral agreement signed before UNCLOS was drafted. That historical priority matters for the legal architecture: a co-signed Iran-Oman transit system cannot be dismissed as a unilateral Iranian imposition the way the PGSA-only mechanism can, and it directly confronts the UNCLOS Article 38 freedom-of-navigation foundation the 26-nation coalition has been resting on .

The Muscat track also reframes Oman's diplomatic posture. Muscat has historically been the back-channel host for US-Iran talks rather than a co-administrator of pressure. Drafting a transit mechanism with Tehran rather than mediating between Tehran and Washington places Oman closer to Iran's institutional architecture than to the Coalition's. If a written agreement emerges, the freedom-of-navigation argument Coalition planners have been making becomes a treaty dispute between two sovereigns who share the strait, not a corridor-opening operation against an isolated obstructor. The shift is the kind of legal repositioning that, once signed, is hard to reverse with hardware.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran and Oman are working on a deal to manage who gets through the Strait of Hormuz. Oman is a small Gulf state that borders the southern half of the strait. It has a long history of acting as a go-between it hosted the secret talks that produced the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. What makes Oman useful here is geography: its waters cover part of the strait's main shipping lane, so any arrangement that runs through Muscat has a legal foundation that Iran's own permit body lacks. A deal here would be harder for the US-led coalition to dismiss than Iran's unilateral toll.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Oman's value in this negotiation stems from a geographic fact that no political decision can alter: its territorial waters extend to the southern half of the strait's navigable channel. Any transit mechanism that runs through Omani coordination therefore operates partly inside Omani sovereign space, giving it a jurisdictional basis the PGSA's Chinese-yuan portal lacks.

A second structural driver is Iran's need for a face-saving exit from the PGSA mechanism. The PGSA generates compliance dilemmas but cannot be physically enforced against a coalition with Wedgetail AEW&C and Charles de Gaulle overhead. A bilateral Oman arrangement lets Tehran claim the PGSA succeeded diplomatically rather than retreating under pressure.

Third, Oman has an independent economic interest in Hormuz stabilisation: its LNG export revenue from Qalhat runs through the strait, and prolonged disruption costs Muscat directly.

Escalation

The Iran-Oman bilateral process is de-escalatory at the procedural level it provides a forum for managing the strait short of kinetic confrontation. Its risk is that it could harden Iran's claim to joint-administrative authority over the strait if a deal is signed before the coalition has agreed its own rules of engagement.

What could happen next?

Opportunity
A signed Iran-Oman transit protocol would give the 26-nation coalition a legal text to engage with rather than a unilateral Iranian claim to refuse.
Short term · 0.68
Risk
If Oman signs a bilateral mechanism that implicitly validates the PGSA's jurisdictional claims, Gulf Cooperation Council cohesion faces a significant test.
Medium term · 0.61
Precedent
A functioning Oman-Iran co-administration of Hormuz would restructure the strait's legal governance for decades, regardless of how the 2026 conflict ends.
Long term · 0.55

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-leaning sources from France

France

LeftRight

Primary parallel: Oman's role in the 2013 secret JCPOA back-channel hosting US-Iran talks in Muscat that produced the framework for the 2015 nuclear deal established the bilateral architecture now being repurposed for Hormuz. The structural parallel holds: Muscat as neutral ground, expert-level technical meetings before political sign-off, deliberate ambiguity about whether the agreement binds third parties.

Counter-parallel: The 1979-1981 Algiers Accords, which ended the Iran hostage crisis, required a single neutral guarantor (Algeria) with no competing alliance memberships. Oman's GCC membership introduces a competing-loyalty constraint Algeria did not face, potentially limiting how FAR Muscat can accommodate Tehran's substantive demands without fracturing Gulf solidarity.

Consensus view: The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) assesses the Iran-Oman bilateral channel as the only Hormuz mechanism that can generate legal cover that CENTCOM's UNCLOS-anchored Coalition cannot simply dismiss. Oman's 1968 Treaty of Amity and Navigation with Iran predates UNCLOS's 1982 transit-passage guarantee, creating a pre-existing bilateral right that does not require UNCLOS endorsement and Oman's southern coast forms the navigable southern channel of the strait.

Counter-view: The Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies in Doha argues that Oman's mediation role is structurally constrained by its Gulf Cooperation Council membership: any bilateral Hormuz deal that materially advantages Iran risks Riyadh and Abu Dhabi treating it as a GCC betrayal, putting Sultan Haitham under simultaneous pressure from Tehran and his own bloc.

Key tension: Whether Oman can produce a transit mechanism Iran will sign onto that also passes legal scrutiny from the 26-nation Coalition whose members' rules of engagement are still unpublished .

Sources:Euronews

Mentions:Esmaeil Baqaei →Iran →Oman →Strait of Hormuz →Euronews →Muscat →Algeria →Riyadh →RUSI →Abu Dhabi →Tehran →Doha →Washington →Persian Gulf Strait Authority →CENTCOM (US Central Command) →UN Convention on the Law of the Sea →

First Reported In

Update #102 · Iran signs Hormuz toll; Trump posts a cancelled strike

Euronews· 19 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

PGSA goes live on Hormuz transit

The PGSA's X account launch operationalised Iran's unilateral Hormuz toll system on the same day Baghaei announced the Iran-Oman bilateral track, suggesting a deliberate parallel architecture.

Occurred 18 May 2026

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This Event

Iran and Oman draft Hormuz bilateral

Oman's 1968 bilateral with Iran predates UNCLOS, so a co-signed transit system would give Iran international-law cover the unilateral PGSA portal lacks and pull the coalition's freedom-of-navigation argument into a treaty dispute.

Led to

PGSA opens vessel portal, withholds tariff schedule

Baghaei's confirmation of Iran-Oman bilateral Hormuz consultations on 18 May deepened the bilateral guided-passage architecture documented in event 3.

Occurred 20 May 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

IAEA

Director General Rafael Grossi appeared in person at the UNSC on 19 May and warned that a direct hit on an operating reactor 'could result in very high release of radioactivity'. The session produced a condemnation record but no resolution, and the Barakah perimeter was already struck on 17 May.

Hengaw (Kurdish rights monitor)

Hengaw documented three judicial executions and the detention of Kurdish writer Majid Karimi in Tehran on 19 May, establishing Khorasan Razavi province as the newest geography in Iran's wartime judicial record. The organisation's Norway-based operation continues to surface a domestic repression track running in parallel with every diplomatic and military development.

India

Six India-flagged vessels conducted a coordinated cluster transit under PGSA bilateral assurances during the 17 May window, paying no yuan tolls. New Delhi's inclusion in Iran's state-to-state passage track insulates Indian energy supply without requiring endorsement of the PGSA's yuan-toll architecture or alignment with the US coalition.

Pakistan

Pakistan is the only functioning diplomatic bridge between Tehran and Washington. Its role is relay, not mediation in the settlement sense: it conveyed Iran's 10-point counter-MOU in early May, relayed the US rejection, and is now passing 'corrective points' in the third documented exchange of this sub-cycle without either side working from a shared text.

UK and France (Northwood coalition)

Twenty-six coalition members have published no rules of engagement eight days after the Bahrain joint statement; Lloyd's underwriters have conditioned war-risk reopening on written ROE from either Iran or the coalition. Italian and French mine-countermeasures deployments are operating on the in-water clearance task CENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper's 90% mine-stockpile claim does not address.

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh has not publicly commented on the Barakah strike or the 50-47 discharge vote. Saudi output feeds the IEA's $106 base case; the $5 Brent premium above that model reflects institutional uncertainty no Gulf producer can compress through supply adjustment alone.