Axios's draft, dated Tuesday, would send inbound Gulf traffic through a northern lane in Iranian waters for sixty days. Outbound ships would use a southern Omani lane in coordination with Iran. No tolls during that window, Axios said. Mines would be cleared from the median scheme within thirty days. [1]

Tuesday's paper already logged inbound-outbound geometry as a proposed fee split. Wednesday's AP sources still have ships entering through an Iranian-controlled route and exiting through Oman, with service fees for security and environment. [2] Washington has opposed fees. Those two drafts do not match.

Deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi told Iranian media that outbound hulls would also spend part of the passage in Iranian waters. ISW read that as a bid for more control than Axios described. [3] Sixty days is a clock. It is not a traffic-separation scheme.

A temporary inbound lane can sit beside a closed strait. Until insurers price it, the draft is a map without a circular.

Democracy Now already put the inbound-outbound split and a service-fee idea on Tuesday's tape. [2] Axios now says no tolls for sixty days. [1] Those two fee sentences cannot both be the posted tariff. Until an IMO circular names the lane, inbound Iranian water is a draft noun.

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem