Iran and Oman are set to discuss the future administration and maritime services in Hormuz, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday, while the Strait saw a sharp uptick in the number of vessels.
The announcement, made by Araghchi on X, came after a joint statement was issued following recent consultations in Muscat.
Tehran's top diplomat said that he had a productive call with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi and that the two countries were determined to pursue similar discussions with their neighbors.
Oman voiced support for the memorandum of understanding signed between the U.S. and Iran, stressing the importance of its success in restoring peace and ensuring safe navigation through Hormuz.
Speaking at a joint ministerial meeting between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the U.S. in Bahrain, Albusaidi had said that Oman, as a coastal state overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, carries a special responsibility in supporting international efforts aimed at securing maritime navigation in line with international law and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
He had also stressed that future arrangements related to the strait would not involve imposing any transit fees, reaffirming Muscat's commitment to maintaining free and secure passage through one of the world's most critical maritime and energy routes.
The GCC and Washington regularly hold consultations on regional security, political coordination and economic cooperation amid ongoing developments in the Middle East.
Traffic uptick
Meanwhile, Strait of Hormuz traffic has increased sharply, but remains at roughly half its peacetime level, officials said Thursday as stranded sailors made their way out of the waterway.
At least 70 confirmed crossings were recorded Wednesday, according to an X post by analytics firm Kpler.
This marked the highest number of vessels in a day since Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz on March 1 in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes.
At least 56 commodity vessels – including tankers carrying oil, gas, and dry bulk such as fertilizers – crossed on Wednesday, Kpler's tracking platform showed.
On Thursday, 15 commodity vessels crossed by midday, according to Kpler – more than the average of 10 daily crossings between March 1 and June 14, when Iran and the US agreed to a memorandum of understanding to start discussing an end to the war.
For the first time since March 1, dry bulk tanker traffic through the waterway on Wednesday reached its 2025 level, with 22 crossings according to maritime tracker AXSMarine.
The traffic increase comes as some of the 11,000 seafarers who had been stuck in the Gulf because of the war continued to sail out of the key passageway.
A U.N.-led plan to evacuate the mariners got underway on Tuesday evening.
Two Maersk vessels exited the Gulf Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, the shipping company told AFP, adding that three of its vessels remained stuck.
Since June 15, traffic has been steadily increasing through the strait, which normally sees around a fifth of the world's oil and gas exports.
Ships exiting the Gulf are using many different routes, creating confusion and signaling that traffic has not returned to its pre-war state, when ships passed through a toll-free corridor at the centre of the waterway, experts say.
"Iran continues to tightly manage the northern routes, issuing what we've heard are selective permits and phasing of agreements," shipping journal Lloyd's List editor-in-chief Richard Meade said in a briefing Thursday.
Tehran warned Thursday against any crossings of the Strait of Hormuz without its authorization, saying vessels not complying "will be dealt with."
"Non-Iranian vessels relying on the southern Omani corridor under U.S. Navy monitoring should not mistake this for any kind of normalcy," Meade said.
European minesweeping vessels headed to the region to remove the mines blocking safe navigation in the strait's main corridor have passed through the Red Sea, Britain's navy said in a statement Tuesday.
A cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz was damaged by an "unknown projectile" Thursday, said the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency, reporting no casualties.