Iran and Oman issued a joint statement following high-level talks in Muscat on June 23 pledging to maintain the Strait of Hormuz as a secure and open international waterway, while also announcing plans to develop a framework for future navigation administration that would include maritime services and associated costs. The language around costs drew an immediate response from United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told reporters that no country would be permitted to impose tolls on an international waterway.
The talks brought together senior Iranian and Omani officials, including Iran’s foreign minister and parliament speaker and Oman’s sultan and foreign minister, reflecting the high-stakes nature of any conversation about governance of the strait through which a significant portion of the world’s daily oil supply moves.
What the joint statement said
The two countries framed their joint commitment around the principles of maritime safety, freedom of navigation, and regional stability, explicitly citing the US-Iran memorandum of understanding signed in June that extended a ceasefire and created a 60-day window for negotiations toward a permanent peace arrangement. The statement’s language on maintaining an open strait was consistent with the memorandum’s terms.
At the same time, the statement introduced a forward-looking dimension by describing plans for a newly established joint working group that would develop an arrangement covering the future administration of navigation through the strait along with the services provided in that context and the costs associated with them. The statement indicated that other Gulf nations and relevant parties would be brought into those discussions.
The language and its origins
The joint statement’s framing on future navigation services and costs appears to align with a specific point in the US-Iran framework agreement, which called for dialogue between Iran and Oman about future administration and maritime services in the strait. That framework point also referenced involving other Gulf coastal states and specified that any future arrangement would respect both international law and the sovereign rights of coastal nations over their territorial waters in the passage.
The question of how to balance international freedom of navigation through a strait with the sovereign rights of the nations whose territorial waters the strait passes through is one of maritime law’s more nuanced areas. Iran’s territorial waters extend into the strait, and the sovereign rights language in both documents reflects Iran’s longstanding insistence that its jurisdiction over that portion of the waterway be formally acknowledged.
Rubio’s clarification and what it means
The reference to costs in the Iran-Oman statement, even framed as relating to maritime services rather than passage fees, was enough to prompt Rubio to address the matter directly with reporters on the same day. He was unambiguous that no country has the authority to impose tolls or fees for passage through an international waterway, drawing a clear line around what any future navigation administration framework may and may not include.
His clarification matters because the distinction between service fees and passage tolls, while legally significant, can become blurred in practice if not carefully defined. A fee for navigational guidance services, for example, might be characterized quite differently depending on how it is structured and who it applies to. Rubio’s swift public response signals that Washington will be watching the details of any framework that emerges from the working group discussions with close attention.
The 60-day negotiating window under the memorandum is still in its early stages, and the Hormuz governance question is emerging as one of the more complex secondary issues that the broader peace process will need to resolve alongside the nuclear questions that remain at the center of the negotiations.
