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The Strait of Hormuz has two shores. The southern bank is Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, and at 21 nautical miles wide with two 12-mile territorial seas, there is no neutral corridor — every transit passes through Iranian or Omani waters. Oman’s UNCLOS free-transit position is the single most important lever for converting the unilateral Iranian arrangement into an equal-access institutional one. This post reads the other shore and the Malacca-style cooperative model it points toward.

The 28 April Jeddah communique called for a ‘permanent, long-term arrangement’ for the Strait of Hormuz. The 5 May US-Bahrain UN draft resolution, with the support of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, asserted freedom of navigation in accordance with international law as the operating principle. The GCC has, in ten days, moved from regional consultation to formal multilateral institutional positioning. This post reads where the alignment sits and what it implies for the configuration that would close the gap.

Pakistan brokered the 8 April ceasefire, hosted the Islamabad Talks of 10-11 April, and now carries the 14-point Iranian proposal and the United States response between Tehran and Washington. Pakistan also imports more than 85% of its crude through Hormuz. This post reads the mediation as institutional infrastructure of a temporary kind, identifies what the mediation can and cannot do, and explains where Pakistan would sit in any working chokepoint authority.

On Persian Gulf Day, April 30, Iran’s Supreme Leader announced a new framework for managing the Strait of Hormuz: rial-denominated proceeds, surcharge for sanctions countries, the General Staff of the Armed Forces as administering body, and an invitation to GCC participation. Set side by side with treaty-backed practice at Suez and Panama, the framework is a unilateral authority claim that clarifies, rather than closes, the institutional gap.