🔶 Unclear outlook for Iran-Oman meeting to sign Hormuz deal

Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, has said that Iran and Oman will sign an agreement on Monday, September 14 (23 Shahrivar) regarding a shared shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz in the presence of the foreign ministers of Arab countries.

In remarks on the sidelines of a trip to India to take part in the BRICS summit, Pezeshkian told the newspaper “India Today” that at the meeting “the same countries whose soil they attacked from are present.”

He nonetheless stressed that the Strait of Hormuz would be opened only if “America gives up its [military] siege and aggression against Iran.”

Bahrain has announced that it will boycott the meeting and will not attend it.

On Sunday, the German news agency reported in an analytical piece that the meeting in Muscat is not expected to quickly reopen the Strait of Hormuz, because, according to Iran’s position, the United States must agree to Tehran’s conditions, including the end of a naval blockade and the suspension of military operations—an outcome that does not seem very feasible.

However, according to the same news agency, holding this regional meeting on a broader scale could lend more credibility to the agreement and increase the chances of Tehran and Washington reaching an accord.

Meanwhile, Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s foreign minister, also said in an interview with the Qatari news website “Al-Arabi Al-Jadid” that the meeting will be held with the participation of seven coastal countries of the Persian Gulf, and that it is intended for “details of the agreement, the related maps, and the joint statement to be communicated to other countries in the Persian Gulf region, and then, ultimately, this package will be sent to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) so that it can be registered and placed within the framework of that organization’s mechanisms.”

Araqchi emphasized that the agenda of the meeting is “specific and limited” and focuses only on the new maritime route in the Strait of Hormuz, and that “creating a new security mechanism for the region, examining the Yemen file, or resolving disputes among the countries of the region” are not among the issues raised and are not on the agenda.

The Iranian foreign minister said that the agreement on Monday does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened, and that the understanding only “specifies a framework and arrangements under which, if conditions for opening the strait are provided, maritime traffic will be carried out accordingly.”