Iran is working with Oman on a plan to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz even as the 60-day negotiating period for a peace deal between the United States and Iran expired with no word of an extension. The result is familiar enough: governments haggle over a waterway, oil traffic, and who gets to issue orders, while ordinary people are left under the shadow of blockade, war, and threats from above.
The Strait as a State Project
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Iran has reached an agreement with Oman over a plan for ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, and that the two sides are working to finalize details for a joint statement. Baghaei said, "an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route." He did not elaborate, but said details that have previously emerged suggest the deal would reopen the strait with ships entering through a route close to Iran and exiting through a route close to Oman. He said ships would transit without paying fees or tolls during an interim period.
Baghaei said the talks with Oman have gone slowly, "but we had planned, and still plan, to finalize the understanding in the form of a package: the map plus a joint statement." That is the language of states doing what states do best: drawing lines, issuing statements, and treating a vital passage as a managed asset rather than a shared space lived through by people who don’t get a seat at the table.
The United States has sought an acceptable deal on opening the strait before ending its blockade of Iranian ports. Iran effectively closed the strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's traded oil supplies passed before the war, after Israel and the United States attacked the country on Feb. 28. The waterway has become another lever in a conflict driven by military power and diplomatic theater, with shipping and energy flows turned into bargaining chips.
War, Blockade, and the Peace Process That Went Nowhere
The Jerusalem Post said progress toward peace talks and a resumption of oil tanker traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz had ground to a halt, with no sign that the warring parties were moving toward ending the conflict that the US and Israel launched on February 28. It also said the MoU, signed on June 17 and aimed at ending the war, quickly unraveled because of a dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran said point 5 of the MoU gives it the right to manage the waterway, while Washington rejected that interpretation.
That is the peace process in miniature: a memorandum signed, a dispute over control immediately exposed, and the whole arrangement collapsing under the weight of competing claims to authority. The paper trail keeps moving. The war machine does not.
The AP reported that fully reopening the waterway has been a key US demand. The same report said Trump has again threatened Oman as Iran says it is working with the Gulf Arab country on a plan to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst that the US would bomb Oman if it "gets in the way," using an expletive for emphasis. Fox News did not provide audio of the interview. In May, Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting that "Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up."
Threats From Above, Costs Below
The language is blunt because the hierarchy is blunt. One side talks about routes and joint statements. Another talks about bombing a country if it interferes. Between them sits the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategic chokepoints, and the people who live under the consequences of decisions made by men with armies, blockades, and press briefings.
The 60-day negotiating period expired with no word of an extension, and both sides appeared as far apart as they were at the start. That gap matters less as a diplomatic detail than as a reminder that the machinery of state power keeps grinding even when the talks stall. The deal may be about shipping lanes on paper. In practice, it is about who gets to command movement, who gets to choke it off, and who gets threatened when they don’t comply.
Oman is being pulled into the middle of a contest between larger powers that treat the region like a map to be redrawn by force. Iran says it has an understanding with Oman. The United States says it wants the strait open before ending its blockade. Trump says Oman can behave or be bombed. The rest is just the paperwork of coercion.