Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Sunday that talks with Oman on shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz are continuing — while attaching a condition that determines whether they lead anywhere.

Reopening the waterway, he said, depends on the United States upholding the memorandum of understanding signed in June. That is the same position Tehran has held for weeks, and Washington’s failure to move on it is why the negotiations are described as continuing rather than progressing.

Why Oman

Oman occupies an unusual position in the region and has done for decades. It maintains working relations with Iran while remaining a Gulf Cooperation Council member and a partner of the West, and it has hosted or brokered talks between Washington and Tehran repeatedly — including the rounds that preceded this war.

Geography reinforces the role. The strait’s southern side is Omani territory, and the Musandam peninsula sits directly opposite the Iranian coast. Any arrangement for managing traffic through Hormuz necessarily involves Muscat, whatever the wider politics.

The gap between the two positions

Set the statements of the past week side by side and the problem is visible.

Washington’s position is that the strait is effectively under American control and that Iran does not decide who passes. Tehran’s is that no vessel transits without the authorisation of its armed forces, and that the waterway stays closed until its conditions are met. Both cannot be true, and the shipping data supports neither — traffic has fallen to a fraction of pre-war levels because owners will not sail on either party’s assurance.

Reuters, citing a senior Iranian official, has reported no progress on the central question of whether the US will return to the June agreement and set a timetable for its commitments. Meanwhile Washington is preparing fresh sanctions, which does not suggest an imminent return to that agreement.

What is actually being negotiated

Beneath the sovereignty language sits a practical question: who administers passage, and on what terms. Iran established a Persian Gulf Strait Authority in May and requires a permit for transit. Gulf states and European governments have objected specifically to any system of tolls on ships crossing the strait.

That objection is not merely about cost. Under the law of the sea, ships enjoy a right of transit passage through international straits that a coastal state cannot suspend or charge for. Accepting a permit regime would concede a principle that applies to every strait in the world, which is why states with no stake in this war care about the outcome.

Iran’s counter is that it bears the environmental and security consequences of the traffic, an argument sharpened by the oil slick now fouling coastlines on both sides of the strait.

Sources

Statements by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi via Al Jazeera live coverage, 16 August 2026; Reuters; NPR reporting on Gulf and European positions on transit fees; Bloomberg.