Iran's Araghchi Says Hormuz Decisions Will Be Made Jointly With Oman

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that Tehran and Oman possess the “natural right” to coordinate and make decisions regarding management of the Strait of Hormuz, framing the two nations as the ultimate arbiters of the waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes each day, according to Middle East Eye.

Araghchi said Iran would hold discussions with other Gulf countries regarding the strait but made clear that Iran and Oman — the two states whose coastlines form the narrowest section of the chokepoint — would retain the final say. The formulation is likely to provoke sharp pushback from Gulf Arab capitals, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all of which depend on unimpeded Hormuz transit for the vast majority of their crude exports, as well as from Washington, which has maintained that freedom of navigation through the strait is a non-negotiable principle of international maritime law.

A Coordinated Escalation

The diplomatic claim did not emerge in isolation. Hours earlier, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that foreign militaries and commercial operators in the strait must “adapt to new rules” set by Tehran, a statement attributed to senior IRGC navy officials that did not specify what those rules would entail operationally.

Taken together, the two statements suggest a coordinated Iranian strategy: the IRGC provides the military framing while the foreign ministry supplies the diplomatic and legal justification. The pairing of hard-power posturing with sovereignty-based claims is a familiar playbook for Tehran, which has used similar rhetoric during previous Hormuz tensions — but this time it is occurring against a backdrop of active US naval operations in the waterway.

The United States has been running an expanding maritime interdiction zone in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. US Central Command reported this week that its forces have redirected more than 125 vessels as part of the blockade enforcement, intercepting tankers carrying Iranian crude and turning away ships bound for Iranian ports. The blockade has already driven Iran’s oil exports to a six-year low of 209,000 barrels per day in May, down 84 percent from 1.34 million bpd in April.

Why Oman

The invocation of Oman is strategic, not incidental. The Sultanate of Oman sits directly across the strait from Iran, and the two countries share overlapping maritime claims in the Hormuz passage. Oman has historically maintained a neutral posture in Gulf disputes, serving as a backchannel between Tehran and Washington during previous rounds of nuclear negotiations and regional de-escalation efforts.

By publicly aligning Oman with its position, Iran is attempting to reframe what the US and Gulf Cooperation Council states treat as an international commons into a bilateral management arrangement — one in which Tehran holds effective veto power. Whether Muscat has agreed to such a framework, or merely to hold discussions, is not clear from Araghchi’s remarks. Oman has not issued a public response to the statement as of Thursday evening.

The move also serves a practical purpose. If Iran can claim shared authority over the strait with Oman, it creates a legal and diplomatic counterweight to US freedom-of-navigation assertions. Washington has long maintained that the Strait of Hormuz is an international strait governed by the transit passage regime under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which grants all ships the right of unimpeded transit regardless of the bordering states’ preferences.

Markets and Shipping Watch the Language

For tanker operators and crude traders, the distinction between Iranian rhetoric and Iranian action remains critical. Araghchi’s statement is a diplomatic claim, not an operational change — no new boarding procedures, exclusion zones or escort requirements have been announced. But the language matters because it establishes a legal framework that Iran could invoke to justify future enforcement actions.

War-risk insurance premiums for Hormuz transit have risen during the current confrontation, and any Iranian move to assert operational control over the strait — rather than merely rhetorical sovereignty — would drive premiums higher and potentially reroute traffic around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks and significant cost to crude deliveries bound for Europe and the Americas.

The broader diplomatic picture remains fractured. Iran and the US are engaged in parallel negotiating and military tracks that appear increasingly difficult to reconcile. Iranian officials have said there has been no tangible progress in talks with Washington, even as contacts continue. President Trump told reporters Wednesday that the US could obtain Iran’s enriched uranium without a formal deal — a statement Tehran has not publicly addressed.

What Comes Next

The Araghchi statement sets up several potential escalation paths. If Iran attempts to formalize a joint management arrangement with Oman, Gulf Arab states will face pressure to respond, potentially through the GCC or through bilateral channels with both Tehran and Muscat. If the US dismisses the claim — which it almost certainly will — Iran may use the rejection as further justification for unilateral action in the strait.

For now, the statement is a marker: Tehran is signaling that it views control of the Hormuz chokepoint as a sovereign right, not a privilege subject to international consensus. How far it is willing to push that claim, against a US naval force actively blockading its exports, is the question that markets, shippers and Gulf capitals will be watching in the days ahead.