Iran Rejects Prewar Status for Strait of Hormuz
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declares the Strait of Hormuz will not return to prewar status as maritime tensions escalate and shipping traffic collapses.
Iranian Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declared that the Strait of Hormuz will never return to its prewar status. He asserted that the waterway is governed by the laws of its littoral states rather than the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, stating there are no free waters in the region.
These declarations follow eight months of conflict involving the United States and Israel. While Iran proposed a seven-point peace plan that includes the lifting of U.S. sanctions and naval blockades, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has rejected Iranian demands for war reparations. Iran further claims to have reached an understanding with Oman regarding waterway oversight.
Maritime instability has increased with reports of tankers striking naval mines and a projectile strike on the Liberia-flagged MT Fujairah Energy. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed to have destroyed enemy navigation systems on Oman's Didamar Island, a claim an Omani official denied. Shipping traffic has collapsed to approximately 4% of normal levels, forcing global oil exporters to rely on ship-to-ship transfers in the United Arab Emirates to bypass the chokepoint.
