Iranian state media reported eight completed rounds of talks with Oman on 5 August, covering a maritime corridor, mine clearance, monitoring arrangements and possible service fees1. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has given the resulting draft a preliminary approval. It still needs the Supreme Leader and the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the body chaired by Iran's president that signs off every strategic security decision, before it binds anything2.
That sequence is worth understanding before reading any Iranian statement about Hormuz. Araghchi runs the negotiation but does not own the decision; the SNSC turns an agreed text into national policy, and the Supreme Leader's office can withhold assent without ever explaining why. Tehran has run announcements ahead of substance on this file before, with Baghaei flatly denying any negotiations on 28 July while Trump claimed deep talks were under way.
The agenda list tells a reader more than the approval status does. Mine clearance appearing as a negotiating item concedes that mines were laid and that somebody must now lift them, which is engineering work with a timetable rather than a communique. Monitoring implies a party watching compliance, and the identity of that party has not been disclosed. Service fees survived eight rounds despite Washington having rejected any Iranian toll or permission requirement outright3, which suggests the item was parked rather than resolved.
An unsigned draft can still fail at the last gate, and the incentives around that gate point in opposite directions. Iranian domestic politics need the arrangement to read as Iranian management of the strait; Washington needs it to read as unconditional transit. The ambiguity that allowed eight rounds to conclude is the same ambiguity that keeps the text unpublished.
