Oman's Strait of Hormuz Conference Implodes
The Omanis have cancelled a regional conference which they had called for Monday in Salalah, to which all GCC members plus Iraq had been invited. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Fars News Agency that the business of the meeting in Oman was to have been the joint presentation of a new maritime transit corridor in the Strait of Hormuz, over which Oman and Iran have come to a draft agreement.
Oman and Iran have been negotiating for months to try and reconcile differences over future arrangements for navigation in the Strait. Oman insisted that it wished to retain freedom of navigation and the right of innocent passage, as found in the IMO-endorsed arrangement that has been in place since 1968. Iran has been holding out to charge passage fees and to have the right to vet the traffic using the Strait. In the run-up to the conference, Omani leader Sultan Haitham bin Tariq and Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi have been keeping fellow GCC members up to date with progress, and also expressed confidence privately that the proposals met with approval from the United States.
Separate from the technical arrangements within the Strait itself, Iran is reported to have laid down seven pre-conditions which the United States would have been required to meet before the agreement could come into force, based around its interpretation of the terms of the June 17 US-Iranian Memorandum of Understanding. Most of the concerns that the other GCC states might have about the new arrangements are likely to have been covered by these pre-condition requirements, rather than the technical content of the deal which Oman has hammered out with Iran over navigation in the Strait.
Bahrain is known to have refused to attend if Iran’s representatives would be there, since Iran has attacked it with ballistic missiles and drones. Bahrain normally aligns its foreign policy closely with that of Saudi Arabia, and Riyadh is believed to have objected to some of the technical arrangements proposed for the new Strait transit plan.
The UAE has not announced that it has refused to attend, but could be expected to have a similar, more robust version of Bahrain’s viewpoint. A well-connected Emirati social media blogger, probably reflecting the official view, chose this particular moment to obliquely criticize Oman’s “never stop negotiating philosophy.” The commentator suggested that diplomacy in foreign policy needed to be matched by deterrence, involving judgement when firmness and robustness in defense of sovereignty and national interest was necessary.
If nothing else, the postponement of the conference has revealed the split between the interests of the United States, which seeks to end the war just with some restitution of controls over Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, and those of the Gulf states, whose economies and national well-being are threatened by Iranian expansionism, drone and missile strikes and restrictions on trade flows in the Strait of Hormuz. As their refusal to attend the Salalah conference shows, the Gulf States have not given in to Iranian pressure, seeking to build alternatives to the current restrictions on use of the Strait of Hormuz, rather than surrender, concede a permanent advantage or accept Iranian regional dominance hereafter.
Little is likely to change for mariners in the Strait of Hormuz in the near future, save that Iran is likely to increase its attacks on shipping, on US regional bases and on GCC infrastructure, as part of its campaign to end the US naval blockade. A lifting of the US blockade is essential for the survival of the IRGC-dominated regime, as it deprives Iran of the money it needs to maintain its grip on power.
Oman Conducts SAR as US and Iran Argue Over Circumstances of Tanker Attack
The Omani Maritime Security Center confirmed on Tuesday, September 15, that it has undertaken a search and rescue effort for the crew of a Panama-flagged product tanker, while saying that two seafarers are missing. Iran is asserting the tanker struck a mine in the Strait of Hormuz, while US Central Command claims a stationary, previously disabled ship was attacked for a second time and hit by a drone.
The product tanker El Gaia was off the Omani coast when it was struck, but there is even disagreement over the timing of the attack. UK Maritime Trade Operations is timing it either to late on September 12 or early on September 13, saying there was a distress call followed by reports of a fire in the engine room and an evacuation. Built in 2005, the 48,000-dwt product tanker was registered in Panama and managed from the UAE.
The Omanis reported the incident on Tuesday and did not indicate when they evacuated the crew. They said 23 crewmembers had been taken from the vessel and received medical attention. The report said two crewmembers remained missing and that the disabled vessel was being towed to an Omani port.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs condemned the attack on Sunday. It said there were 14 Indian crewmembers, and one was missing.
Iran’s IRGC Navy issued a statement on Monday claiming the tanker had been attempting to “traverse a restricted zone south of the Strait of Hormuz.” The IRGC Navy called the maritime lane the vessel was using “hazardous“ and "illegal" and said the result was that the vessel struck sea mines.
Oman and UKMTO report an engine room fire after the vessel was struck (Omani Maritime Security Center)
It claimed the firefighting efforts were “unsuccessful, leaving the entire tanker engulfed in flames.” The Omanis, however, said the fire in the engine room had been extinguished after the attack.
CENTCOM issued another of its so-called Fact Checks, refuting the Iranian account and calling it another example of “their lies and intimidation attempts while they try to impede commercial vessels in the strait.” In CENTCOM’s version of the events, the El Gaia was struck by an Iranian missile last month and rendered inoperable. It claimed the ship was attacked a second time while it “sat in the waters of the coast of Oman.”
Martin Kelly, Head of Advisory at EOS Risk Group, described the events, saying he was “dubious at best” of the accounts and calling Iran’s version “scaremongering.” He writes, “Iran has fabricated several similar stories over the past month. Iran's kinetic activities are not sufficient to stop shipping from transiting via the Omani route …. Iran is using misinformation as a non-kinetic fire to achieve the same effect, that is, attempting to deter shipping from transiting the Strait of Hormuz via Oman, by scaremongering shipping into believing mines are present.”
The United States has asserted on several occasions that it cleared all the mines from the Strait of Hormuz. It recently reported attacks it said were to stop Iran’s efforts to release new mines into the waterway.
Observers cannot agree on how many ships are actually making the transit while the US asserts the waterway is open and vessels are sailing with U.S. protection. Most vessels appear to be making the transit “dark,” leading to reports that only a few vessel transits can be confirmed from AIS transmissions.
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