The Iran war is in a tense ceasefire, because although the United States has announced a two-week cessation of attacks, the 10-point peace plan does not include Lebanon, a country that Israel has continued to bomb. Despite attempts to include this country in the negotiations, there is currently no agreement.
One of the most repeated questions now that the conflict has paused is what happens to the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blocked since the beginning of hostilities and through which 20% of world maritime trade circulated before the war.
The ten-point peace plan includes “coordinated” passage with the Iranian Army through the Strait of Hormuz. However, following Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Iran has closed it. In fact, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has shared a map with alternative routes for ships to avoid passing through Hormuz.
Two alternative routes to pass through Hormuz
“In the presence of various types of anti-ship mines,” the Tasnim agency has warned that ships going through the strait will have to coordinate with the Revolutionary Guard and, until the danger is reduced, use “alternative routes.” According to information from Persian media, there will be two routes, one for entry and one for exit.
The entry route will go from the Sea of Oman to the island of Larak and from there it will exit to the Persian Gulf, while the exit route will take the opposite route, according to a map that Tasnim has shared on Telegram.
Can Iran charge ships a toll?
As can be seen in a video broadcast by Reuters showing the transit of ships through Hormuz, there is a traffic jam of ships. Before the war, between 120-140 ships passed through a day, while on Wednesday, a day after the ceasefire, only five passed through, according to the maritime analysis company Kpler.
Doubts about the future of Hormuz are growing, and even more so given Iran’s threat to charge the ships a toll and subject them to inspections, spokesman for the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Exporters Union, Hamid Hosseini, told the Financial Times. Fees that would supposedly be paid in cryptocurrencies or Chinese yuan.
Trump and Starmer agree on the need to adopt a “practical plan” for reopening
The European Commission (EC) considers that charging any type of toll is illegal, because it would not guarantee the right to free navigation, while the US president, Donald Trump, has lamented that Iran is doing “a very poor job” in relation to the management of the strait and that it is not what they had agreed.
In addition, he has warned the Iranians to stop charging those fees “immediately,” if they are doing so. “They better not!” he wrote on his social network Truth Social. In addition, he held a telephone conversation with the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to agree on a “practical plan” to restore maritime traffic.
