The United States and Oman are searching for a way to break Iran’s insistence on collecting tolls from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington’s principal offer in indirect negotiations has been to release a portion of Iran’s roughly $100 billion in frozen overseas funds, the Wall Street Journal reported.
But Tehran has so far refused to budge. Instead, Iran’s military leadership has renewed threats against ships using the waterway, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Doha this week to meet Qatari mediators. The goal was to break the deadlock and advance implementation of a preliminary agreement reached last month on reopening the strait. People familiar with the talks said both the US and Iran also discussed the recent Lebanon conflict with Qatar’s mediators, which has further complicated the negotiations.
The US negotiators presented Iran with an exchange proposal: if Iran drops its demand for control over the strait and withdraws its toll claim, Washington would release several billion dollars from the frozen funds, the sources said.
Under a deal reached last month, Iran was supposed to gain access to a portion of the roughly $100 billion in overseas assets. Years of sanctions have caused rampant inflation, putting Iran’s economy under severe pressure, making access to new foreign currency critically important.
Early negotiations had been making progress toward releasing $6 billion held in Qatar. But Iran’s strait blockade pushed that process backward, according to people familiar with the talks. On Thursday, Iran made clear the offer was not enough. Deputy Foreign Minister and lead negotiator Kazem Gharibabadi, returning from Doha, said the Strait of Hormuz “is under Iran’s control, not America’s.”
Later in the day, Iran’s military took an even harder line, warning that any ship attempting to cross the strait without Iranian-approved routing would face “immediate and powerful” retaliation.
Iran wants to collect fees from every ship passing through the strait for security and maritime services, hoping to generate a large share of a potential $40 billion annual revenue. The United States and Gulf neighbors have rejected the demand.
Negotiators are instead considering an Omani alternative proposal. Oman controls the southern portion of the strait. Under the plan, maritime service payments would flow through a special fund built from voluntary contributions, according to officials familiar with the negotiations. Oman has already held talks with oil and shipping companies about their willingness to contribute. But Iran has opposed this approach because it would not involve direct toll or fee payments.
Gulf states are also skeptical about whether the plan would work, with officials noting that Iran lacks adequate infrastructure and equipment to properly manage the waterway. Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, said: “Iran wants to open the strait on its own terms and doesn’t want to give up the strategic leverage it has gained.” She added that “Tehran can destabilize the strait far more easily than it can effectively administer it in the long term.”
Shipping through the strait has been severely disrupted. Last week, Oman opened an alternative shipping route without Tehran’s permission, prompting Iran to resume attacks on vessels. The US launched retaliatory strikes, after which both sides agreed to a ceasefire and restarted negotiations. According to commodity intelligence firm Kpler, daily ship transits through the strait fell to 43 on Wednesday, down from 75 a week earlier. Before the conflict, more than 100 ships used the waterway daily.
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