On August 4, 2026, Iran’s Foreign Ministry stated that it was actively negotiating to make the Strait of Hormuz a single two-way shipping route, replacing the current Traffic Separation Scheme adopted by the International Maritime Organisation in 1968. The corridor would combine the southern lane through Omani territorial waters with the northern lane through Iranian waters, and allow for two-way commercial traffic on an interim basis until a permanent agreement is reached. The proposal is the most concrete maritime solution to emerge since the MOU was signed on June 17. It is also, on careful reading, a clearer statement of Iran’s strategic position than anything its negotiators have said in Doha.
The sequence of proposals and counterproposals tells the story. Oman’s original proposal was based on the Strait of Malacca arrangement, which involves Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore sharing responsibility for the navigation and safety costs of a common strait. The Omani plan offered Iran a role managing shipping lanes on its side of the strait, with Oman managing the opposite side. Several Gulf states supported the Omani plan, and, crucially, would be able to levy Iran voluntary transit fees on vessels without formally accepting Iranian authority over the waterway. Iran rejected it.
Tehran’s counterproposal, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said, would see one route lying entirely within Iranian territorial waters, with part of the other route also passing through Iranian territorial waters, so that Iran can effectively exercise oversight over both inbound and outbound traffic. He warned that the strait will remain closed if Oman rejects this plan. That is the sentence that explains everything. Iran is not willing to enter into a common agreement. It wants both lanes, or at least oversight of both lanes, which will achieve the same strategic goal. Control of inbound and outbound traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is equivalent to control of access to the entire Gulf. That is not a maritime traffic proposal. It is a sovereignty claim expressed in navigation geometry.
Why This Matters for the August 16 Deadline
The IMO has advised ships to avoid the existing Traffic Separation Scheme due to the reported presence of mines. At its narrowest point, the strait is 34 kilometres wide and has two-way lanes for sending approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day, which is about 20 per cent of global seaborne oil trade. Every day those lanes remain contested is a day the global economy absorbs costs that the IEP estimates at $2.2 trillion annually. The proposal for the Oman corridor is appealing to the markets because it gives them a chance to reopen the strait before the August 16 deadline, even if they don’t formally have to accept the sovereignty issue that has resulted in all previous military exchanges since the MOU was signed.
However, Iran’s offer of a counterproposal brings the sovereignty issue back into the corridor deal. The planned new arrangement would restrict free passage compared to the period before the conflict and would potentially allow Iran to control which ships enter the strait and deny passage to warships. The United States won’t be able to tolerate an agreement that grants Iran veto power over the passage of naval vessels. Iran is unwilling to allow the strait to remain international waters open to freedom of navigation without Iranian control. The Oman corridor is the same structural disagreement the MOU papered over, now expressed in nautical miles rather than diplomatic language.
Trump cancelled a weekend strike at Gulf allies’ request, said a deal is imminent, and announced negotiations resuming Monday. Iran’s Foreign Ministry simultaneously denied being in any talks with the United States. Iran is negotiating with Oman. Oman is negotiating with Gulf states. Pakistan has invited Iran’s FM to Islamabad. Trump is calling the deal imminent. The parties are circling the same problem from different directions while the 60-day window counts down to 12 days remaining.
Pakistan called Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi for talks on the corridor project in Islamabad and the overall framework of the final deal. That invitation is precisely right. Eventually, the Oman corridor must be one which can be said to reflect the position of all parties to it, in terms of their own domestic audiences. Pakistan is the only actor with enough trust from both Washington and Tehran to translate Iran’s sovereignty claim into language the US can tolerate and Washington’s freedom of navigation requirement into terms Iran can accept. That is the bridging work the next 12 days require. The geography of the corridor is the easy part. The sovereignty embedded in that geography is the hard part. It always has been.
