Oman is present in the reopening plan. It is absent from the denial column.

Thursday's paper described Iran's two-register diplomacy, including Kazem Gharibabadi's claim that a Hormuz protocol would be administered with Oman. The same edition said the PGSA form made the toll regime documentary, not rhetorical. Friday has not produced the obvious Omani sentence: no, we are not jointly administering it.

What did surface is adjacent. AGBI reported IMO talks with Oman and Iran on the mechanics of reopening Hormuz, including seafarer evacuation and safe-transit sequencing. [1] gCaptain described a UK-led 40-nation defensive mission meant to secure the strait before normal traffic can resume. [2] AGBI's earlier account of the IMO plan made the same point: reopening begins with safety architecture, not a press release. [3]

That gives Muscat a difficult role. If Oman speaks only as logistics partner, Tehran can keep citing it as institutional cover for a fee protocol. If Oman denies joint administration, it risks turning a reopening channel into a public dispute.

For now, the silence does work for Iran. It does not prove Tehran's claim. It preserves it. The next useful document is not another coalition statement. It is an Omani sentence with the word no in it.

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels