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By Brendan Cole and Toby Meyjes
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Iran has announced the formation of a new body to manage the Strait of Hormuz amid deadlocked peace talks with the United States and a stand-off over the shipping route that is vital for global oil trade.
Iran's Supreme National Security Council (NSC) posted on X about the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), in a signal that Tehran is looking to formalize its grip on the critical waterway it has blockaded.
"In the Name of God. The official X account of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority is now live,” Monday’s post said. “Follow us for real-time updates on Hormuz Strait operations and latest developments."
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Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy shared the same post on social media. It is not immediately clear what the new body would do, but it has been reported that ships passing through the waterway are being sent regulations from the PGSA email address.
“Iran is encouraged from the failures and hyper-personalized foreign policy of the Trump administration and is really testing the limits of where it can push this,” Yörük Işık, an Istanbul-based maritime expert who runs the Bosphorus Observer, told Newsweek on Monday.
“It's bad because it shows the crisis is far from being over and that means the supply chain will remain interrupted,” he said. “Even if the crisis were solved immediately, the supply chain will take months, if not years, to recover fully to what it was before 90 days ago.”
The announcement follows a statement made Saturday by Iranian parliament's National Security Committee chair, Ebrahim Azizi, that Tehran had set up a system to manage traffic through the strait that would soon be unveiled.
Hamidreza Hajibabaei, deputy speaker of Iran’s parliament, said on April 23 that the first revenue from a newly imposed toll system had been received, according to the local Tasnim news agency.
However, ahead of last week’s Beijing summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, senior American and Chinese officials said no country can be allowed to collect shipping tolls in the strait.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed the issue in April, according to the U.S. State Department, whose spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said the pair agreed that “no country or organization can be allowed to charge tolls to pass through international waterways.”
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Efforts to Exert Control
Before the start of the war on February 28, one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas transited through the strait, which has in effect been held hostage by Tehran, spiking global energy prices with knock-on effects for the global economy.
While Trump has repeatedly said that there would be a deal to unblock the strait and end the war, Tehran has insisted that maritime traffic through the strait would not return to its pre-war status.
According to AFP, earlier this month, Iran's state-run outlet Press TV described the body as "a system to exercise sovereignty over the waterway."
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in analysis released Saturday that Tehran was introducing a toll system under the guise of maritime insurance policies as part of its push to tighten its grip over the strait.
"They are playing for time of how much more disruption they can create by making these kind of moves. But otherwise, this is an unacceptable move for the entire world," added Işık.
The insurance would insure vessels against Iranian attacks as part of a measure by Iran’s Economy Ministry to force payments from shipping companies, according to a document viewed by state media outlet Fars, cited by ISW, a Washington think tank.
The IRGC Navy is allowing passage of vessels from East Asian countries such as China, Japan and Pakistan, and negotiations were underway with unnamed European actors for passage, according to Iranian state media.
As Iran looks to control the waterway, the U.S. has also blockaded Iranian ports. However, a U.S.-sanctioned liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker loaded fuel at Iran’s Kharg Island on Saturday after slipping through the U.S. naval blockade undetected, according to tracking firm Tanker Trackers.
The firm said the vessel NUNYA last appeared on the marine tracking system AIS (Automatic Identification System) nearly two weeks earlier off the coast of India before loading LPG at Kharg Island.
In a statement to Newsweek on Saturday, the firm Windward intelligence said that 20 tankers were drifting or anchored east of Kharg island, which was “a peak count, up from 18 at last check.”
“LPG loading operations have resumed at the South LPG Berth," Windward said. "Crude flows remain frozen, and the queue of waiting tankers is still growing.”
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