Iran says new Strait of Hormuz corridor agreement to be signed in coming days

Iran expects an agreement establishing a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz to be signed in the coming days, but will not commit to fully reopening the strategic waterway unless the United States halts attacks and other hostile actions, the country’s top security official said on Sunday.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said that entry and exit through the planned corridor would be managed by Tehran.

Iran and Oman have been negotiating arrangements for a temporary shipping corridor through the strait, with sections of the route running through Iranian and Omani waters. The talks are part of diplomatic efforts to restore maritime traffic through a waterway that carried roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the war began in February.

Rezaei said Tehran would only guarantee that the strait remained open if the US refrained from attacks and what he described as acts of sabotage.

He said the main problem with the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, signed in June to end the war and establish a framework for a broader agreement, was the lack of guarantees, adding that mediators had been unable to ensure its implementation.

Under the deal, Washington was to lift its naval blockade of Iran while Tehran was to facilitate the safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. The agreement later unraveled amid disputes over its implementation.

Despite discussions over the new corridor, Rezaei insisted that the Strait of Hormuz was currently “completely closed.”

He said no more than seven or eight ships were passing through the waterway each day, with five or six carrying essential goods for Iran.

Rezaei claimed US forces occasionally facilitated the passage of five or six vessels through waters near Oman, but said those ships were typically targeted and did not pass through unharmed. He said that such movements did not amount to a reopening of the strait.

Shipping through Hormuz has been severely disrupted since the outbreak of the war, while Washington and Tehran have offered conflicting accounts of the extent to which the waterway is open.

Rezaei also said Iran would soon declare a restricted zone around the strait, warning that vessels entering the area would be placed on an Iranian sanctions list and would subsequently be unable to transit Hormuz without Tehran’s approval.

He said Iran was tightening restrictions in the waterway and claimed the impact of Tehran’s sanctions there would ultimately be greater than that of its missile attacks.

On the military front, Rezaei said Iran had for the first time tested a domestically produced destroyer-launched missile against a US naval vessel 48 hours earlier.

His comments came amid renewed maritime clashes between the two countries. US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Saturday that American forces struck three Iranian crude oil tankers after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched ballistic missiles toward two US Navy warships.

Rezaei also sought to play down the economic impact of the confrontation on Iran, saying the country had sufficient stocks of food and other essential goods and continued to sell oil and receive payment for its exports.

His comments come as a US naval blockade targeting vessels entering and leaving Iranian ports has sharply curtailed Tehran’s oil exports, a key source of government revenue and foreign currency.