Iran and Oman weigh Hormuz reopening, tolls in dispute

For months, the price at Serbian petrol pumps has depended on no decision made in Belgrade, but on a single narrow sea passage between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. That passage is now the subject of active negotiation: Iranian and Omani negotiators are trying to reach an agreement on restarting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and officials from both countries met in Tehran over the weekend. News of the talks sent crude prices sharply lower on world markets, the clearest sign yet that traders are seriously pricing in a reopening.

The Omani delegation travelled to the Iranian capital on Friday, July 25, the same night US President Donald Trump ordered a halt to American strikes on Iran. The timing was no accident. Muscat has spent decades as the discreet intermediary between Tehran and the West, and it is currently the only diplomatic channel working in both directions.

The proposal under discussion has two parts. The first is opening the middle corridor of the strait to commercial traffic. The second is a joint regional mechanism for managing the waterway, funded by fees that would be voluntary rather than imposed. Omani officials are also proposing a joint maritime security and search and rescue operation, financed on a voluntary basis by countries in the region together with the shipping and oil industries.

Who collects the tolls, and who clears the mines?

That is precisely where the talks break down. Iran wants control over the strait and the right to charge for passage in exchange for guaranteed safety, while both the United States and Oman oppose any compulsory levy. The difference is not technical but fundamental: a voluntary contribution is a service, a mandatory toll is an admission that one state owns an international waterway. No Western foreign ministry will concede that precedent without a fight.

The second open item is the physical state of the strait. The central corridor is believed to be mined, so clearance would have to precede any return of regular traffic. Who carries out that operation, under whose mandate, and with what guarantee that it will not have to be repeated, has not been settled even in outline. Demining is slow, expensive and requires a level of trust that does not currently exist.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke by phone with his Omani and Saudi counterparts on Monday, July 27. Officials on both sides used the same wording: the parties remain far apart on some issues, but progress has been made. In diplomatic vocabulary that means the outline of a deal exists and the signature does not. Traffic data bears this out. While 28 vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb, a four-day high, movement through Hormuz stayed low.

What a reopening would mean for Serbia

Serbia does not import oil through the Strait of Hormuz, yet it pays for the blockade. The global crude price feeds into domestic pumps with a lag of several weeks, and from there into the cost of transport, food and every service that depends on moving goods. That is why a drop in crude on the first news of negotiations matters more to a Serbian household budget than it appears at first glance.

For European capitals the stake is the same, only larger. A blockade of the world’s most important oil passage leaves the Union’s energy policy running on improvisation, and every month of uncertainty raises the pressure to accept some mechanism, including one that leaves Tehran more leverage than Brussels would like. The geopolitical reality is that Hormuz is now an instrument of pressure, not merely a shipping lane.

The next step is another round of talks, with no date announced. Should Europe accept a mechanism in which Iran keeps part of its control over the strait, if that is the price of cheaper fuel?