Iraq negotiated bilateral Hormuz passage for a Very Large Crude Carrier of approximately 2 million barrels in mid-May and was in talks for additional tankers, while Pakistan secured transit for two Qatari LNG vessels through a Pakistan-Iran agreement, according to OilPrice.com reporting with Windward vessel-tracking corroboration 1. Neither Iraq nor Pakistan paid The Persian Gulf Strait Authority yuan tolls directly; Tehran accepted political engagement in lieu of yuan.
Returning from the BRICS foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi where his travel had been announced four days earlier , Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Mehr News Agency: 'the strait of Hormuz is open to friendly nations, and restrictions apply only to adversaries' 2. The Mehr quotation is the doctrinal anchor; the Iraq and Pakistan operational deals are its implementation evidence. Araghchi's wording arrives alongside the 26-nation Western coalition paper, codifying Iran's counter-framework on the same chokepoint.
The bilateral track operationalises the Persian Gulf Strait Authority toll infrastructure established on 5 May and the $2m yuan per-ship toll Lloyd's List confirmed . Pakistan's status as the US-Iran MOU carrier gives Islamabad the diplomatic capital it spent on Qatari LNG passage, and China endorsed Pakistan's mediatory role on 13 May . The same Qatar that signed the 26-nation coalition paper received LNG through this bilateral track, an inconsistency Doha is paid to tolerate by both sides.
Counter-perspective: Western capitals will read the friendly-nations formulation as straightforward coercion of flag states; Tehran frames it as the legitimate exercise of littoral-state authority under UNCLOS Article 38(2), which permits coastal states to regulate transit passage in narrow conditions. The structural effect is identical either way: every flag state is now forced into a declared political position on Iran, making Hormuz a sorting mechanism rather than a freely-navigable strait .
