Muscat [Oman], July 29: Oman has presented Iran with a plan backed by Gulf states to manage the Strait of Hormuz, including collecting voluntary fees for using it, a Gulf source and a Western diplomat told Reuters on Tuesday.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Tehran had yet to respond to the Omani proposals, intended to serve as a basis to end the disruption to trade through the strait caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
President Donald Trump, who abruptly called off a two-week US bombing campaign over the weekend in his latest strategic U-turn, said there were "good talks" under way with Iran but threatened to restart strikes unless negotiations deliver. Iran denies seeking to resume talks with the United States.
Washington launched its renewed bombing campaign earlier this month to break Iran's grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the war.
Iran effectively shut the strait to ships other than its own after the United States and Israel attacked on February 28. A deal last month between the United States and Iran partially reopened it, but the agreement collapsed in early July after Iran fired on ships using a channel it does not approve.
Iran has said it wants to manage the strait alongside Oman, which controls the opposite shore, and charge service fees to ships that use it. Washington wants to return to the status quo before the war, when ships were able to pass freely with no payments, and says charging mandatory fees would be illegal.
Under the Omani proposal, Iran would not exercise sole control, and fees would be voluntary, the Gulf source and Western diplomat briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The system would be analogous to one in place on Asia's Strait of Malacca, where Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore ask ships to pay voluntary contributions to fund navigation, environmental protection and search-and-rescue operations.
The Western diplomat compared it to a voluntary carbon tax for flights, where anyone buying a plane ticket can choose to tick a box if they want to pay to offset their emissions.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday ahead of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Trump said the US was in a strong position right now.
He reiterated he was prepared to strike more Iranian targets, but said he would prefer to avoid doing so.
"I think about 91 million people without power, without bridges, would have to live, and it's a very, very delicate balance. So I think we have a very strong position right now; they know I'm going to do that if they don't make a deal."
Trump also repeated a threat to potentially target Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified facility buried deep underground near one ofTehran's main nuclear sites, saying: "If we don't make a deal we'll take it out very easily".
Source: Qatar Tribune
