Oman postpones the Salalah meeting on Hormuz shipping between Iran and the Gulf states
Oman put off, a day early, the Monday meeting in Salalah where Iran and the Gulf states were to discuss ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi cited the search for consensus and gave no new date. Bahrain had already said it would stay away, and Saudi Arabia had filed amendments to the draft. The Omani plan foresaw route maps and voluntary contributions; Washington wants to talk to Iran only about the nuclear file.
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A postponement one day before the meeting
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi announced on Sunday that the regional meeting due the next day in Salalah, a city in the south of Oman, had been put off to a later date. Oman's state news agency gave the reason as creating the conditions for constructive dialogue; in a post on X, Albusaidi tied the delay to the interests of consensus and repeated his country's commitment to dialogue that supports stability in the region. No new date was announced. Bahrain had already ruled out attending any meeting that included Iran, and Iran's foreign ministry had said before the meeting that Iraq and the Gulf states would take part in talks on safe-passage arrangements for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.[1], [2]
On the table: an Omani route plan and voluntary contributions
The Monday meeting, as CNN reported on the basis of sources familiar with the plans, would have brought Gulf diplomats and Iranian officials together around an Omani plan to reopen the strait to regular tanker traffic, without the United States at the table. The legal framework, drafted over months of private discussions, included voluntary payment for navigational safety and environmental protection, and one goal of the meeting was to agree on maps for routes through the strait. Saudi Arabia submitted amendments out of concern that the proposed language could establish a new status quo unacceptable to it and to the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional grouping of the Arab Gulf states. The idea of mandatory Iranian tolls remained widely rejected, while voluntary contributions for directing passage stayed open. The Trump administration, meanwhile, had told governments in the region that it wants any future talks with Iran to stay on Tehran's nuclear programme, and a US official said about an hour before the postponement that Washington was in close communication with all of its regional partners.[2]
A vessel struck off Qeshm a day before the talks
The postponement fell on a day of strain in the strait itself. Iranian state media said an Iranian commercial vessel had been struck off Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz, with one person killed and four wounded; IRNA, Iran's state news agency, quoted the Qeshm governor blaming a terrorist enemy and saying the projectile had not been identified. UKMTO, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre that collects incident reports from merchant shipping, separately reported a vessel hit by an unknown projectile in the strait with a fire on board. The United States did not comment on the incident. Before the war about 20 million barrels of oil a day passed through the strait, and traffic remains about 90 per cent below pre-conflict levels. At that hour Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei had said Gulf diplomats would meet Iran in Oman on Monday, while Bahrain said it would not attend.[3], [1]
