Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Wednesday that ships would travel through Iranian waters during part of their outbound passage before continuing through Omani waters. [1] Axios had described a cleaner split: inbound through Iranian waters, outbound through Omani waters in coordination with Iran for sixty days while mines are cleared. [1][2] Gharibabadi also said the new arrangement would replace both temporary routes now in use, the U.S.-facilitated southern path through Omani water and the Iranian path Tehran has coerced ships onto. [1]
The paper's Tuesday lead recorded that Iran and Oman advanced a temporary Hormuz route with inbound Iran and outbound Oman. Wednesday's deputy minister widened the outbound claim. That is the story, not a new signature.
A regional source told Reuters that unspecified parties had already accepted some form of Iranian control and offered no map. [1][3] ISW assesses that Tehran is trying to turn temporary disruption into a lasting management role, so it can monitor traffic, pressure adversaries, and threaten the strait again in the next crisis. [1]
A reader who only has the Axios diagram will think Oman owns the exit. A reader who only has Gharibabadi will think Iran still sits on the way out. The completed Wednesday record is two maps and no published coordinates. The paper will not pick a winner it cannot fetch.
Replacing both temporary routes is the load-bearing clause. [1] The U.S.-facilitated Omani southern path is how some owners have tried to stay out of Iranian water. The coerced Iranian path is how Tehran has already practiced control. Gharibabadi wants one scheme that retires both. That scheme, in his telling, still uses Iranian water on the way out.
Sixty days of mine clearance is Axios's clock. [1][2] Gharibabadi did not bind himself to that clock in ISW's account. A broader outbound role that outlives clearance is not a temporary safety lane. It is a claim that outbound ships answer to Tehran for part of the transit even after the mines are gone.
ISW has already said Iranian control lets the regime choose which vessels pass and at what cost. [1] Gharibabadi's sentence is how that assessment becomes a public map. A regional source's shrug to Reuters — some form of control, no detail — is how diplomats hide the fight between the two maps. [1][3]
Charterers will not book on a deputy minister's interview. They will book on coordinates, a fee, and a week without a strike on the Omani bypass. Wednesday offered the interview. It did not offer the rest.
Inbound Iran was already Tuesday's lead. Outbound Oman was the concession that made the diagram look like a bargain. [1] Gharibabadi's outbound bend takes the bargain back. If ships still kiss Iranian water on the way out, Oman is a partner on paper and a lane marker on the water. That is a broader role. It is also why the IRGC can live with a draft it did not attend, or kill it if the bend disappears in the next rewrite.
-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem