One of Iran’s negotiators in talks with the United States, Kazem Gharibabadi, reasserted claims this week of permanent Iranian control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and rejected internationally recognized shipping routes established in 1968.
Tensions over the strait, a crucial path for oil and gas shipments, have threatened a fragile cease-fire between the United States and Iran. Iran has insisted it has authority over the strait and threatened ships that don’t travel on its mandated routes.
Here’s a closer look at the decades-old agreement that established the shipping routes and why Iran is opposed to it.
What was the agreement?
Nearly six decades ago, Omani and Iranian officials negotiated an agreement, ratified by the U.N. International Maritime Organization, that established the official way to transit the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global energy supplies.
The framework, called the Traffic Separation Scheme, was largely a technical solution to prevent collisions between supertankers passing through the waterway, which is just 24 miles wide. It was also a legal solution to the fact that there are no neutral international waters in the middle of the strait where ships transit because the sovereign waters of Iran and Oman overlap.
Why is Iran rejecting it?
At the time, Iran was a dominant military power in the region and did not need to use its geography as leverage, Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said.
Today, in Iranian officials’ view, the traditional transit routes have allowed warships to pass through the strait, threatening Iran’s security, Mr. Vaez said.
Mr. Gharibabadi, the deputy foreign minister, noted on Monday that the agreement predated the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the shah and brought an authoritarian clerical regime to power.
“Today we told the Omani side that those routes must definitely change,” he said. “We decided that we would also begin expert and technical talks on changing the routes.”
What does Iran want?
Mr. Gharibabadi’s remarks solidified Iran’s intention to move away from that framework in favor of negotiating a new system that gives them more control over the waters. Iran has already placed naval mines in the strait, effectively blocking those established 1968 routes.
“They are refining their argument to sound more legalistic,” said Jennifer Parker, a former naval officer now at the University of Western Australia’s Defense and Security Institute. She said the argument was designed to maximize Tehran’s leverage at the negotiating table.
To bypass Iran’s territorial waters, the United States and Oman recently attempted to establish an alternative corridor along the strait’s southern side in Omani waters under a U.S. military escort mission. Mr. Gharibabadi reiterated on Monday that Iran would refuse to recognize any such parallel routes.
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