Hormuz: IRGC announces agreement with Oman on strait revenue, which remains closed

On August 26, 2026, the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Mohebbi, announced that Iran and Oman have defined each country’s share of waters in the Strait of Hormuz and how revenue from the passage will be divided. In the same statement, Mohebbi specified that the Strait will remain closed until the United States accepts Iran’s conditions, and attributed the slowdown in negotiations to Washington: “The United States is obstructing the process, causing delays in progress” (transl. from English). We reported on August 18 on an initial Iranian announcement of an agreement on routes.

The gap between this announcement and the diplomatic document that preceded it is the relevant point. On August 25, the foreign ministries of Iran and Oman had issued a joint statement referring to an “interim framework” for the resumption of transits: no final agreement, no mention of fees or revenue distribution. The military spokesman’s announcement therefore adds two elements — water shares and revenue division — that the two governments’ text did not contain. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has not confirmed what the IRGC stated.

A second Iranian channel provided more limited indications. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi spoke of a temporary corridor 7 miles wide, equivalent to 11.3 kilometers, warning in turn that the passage will not be fully reopened until the United States honors the June agreement. In this version too, therefore, reopening is not announced as imminent but as conditional on an external factor.

Regarding sources, it must be stated clearly where the news comes from. The announcement was released by the Iranian state agency Sepah News and picked up by Bloomberg; the Bloomberg dispatch is the basis for gCaptain’s report, which therefore does not constitute an additional origin. Al Jazeera reports the statements made by Gharibabadi and the IRGC spokesman, Sputnik those made in Tehran by the Revolutionary Guards. In all cases the available material traces back to statements by Iranian authorities: no independent confirmation of the existence of the agreement, nor any autonomous Omani position, is currently available. What is verified is that the announcement was made and in what terms, not that the agreement exists in the form described.

The elements that would make the announcement operational remain unknown: the corridor’s coordinates, the start date for transits, the mechanism by which revenue would be generated and collected. Without published fees and without a defined entry point, a shipowner has no way to calculate either the cost or the route of a passage. The closure of the Strait, which this newspaper has followed since August 14, remains the operational fact: the August 26 announcement concerns the division of revenue from traffic that, according to Iran’s own statements, has not yet been restored.

Sources: Bloomberg (origin: Sepah News, Iranian state agency); gCaptain (report based on the Bloomberg dispatch); Al Jazeera; Sputnik (Russian state agency).