·
·
World
Iran has imposed a 40-question transit form for ships in the Strait of Hormuz, escalating maritime pressure and risking further confrontation.
Commercial vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz now face a lengthy questionnaire from Tehran, a move that maritime and diplomatic sources describe as a new form of coercion. The form, containing over forty questions about a ship’s identity, ownership, crew, cargo, and route, is seen as an attempt to impose political and security control over an international waterway where Iran has no legal right to establish a permission gate.
The document is widely interpreted as a pressure tool, pushing ships to comply with demands that lack clear legitimacy under international law for a strait used for international navigation. It adds a layer of provocation to an already tense maritime environment, moving beyond simple harassment toward a more structured system of leverage.
Reports indicate that Tehran has created a new body to manage shipping traffic in the strait, imposing pre-clearance requirements that include data on ownership, registration, crew, and cargo. This suggests a systematic effort to institutionalize control over the waterway. Vessels that fail to comply, according to other reports, risk being targeted or seized, shifting the “rules” from navigational regulation to armed extortion.
These developments coincide with the Iranian navy's seizure of the oil tanker "Ocean Koi" in the Sea of Oman on Friday, under the pretext of suspected attempts to disrupt Iranian oil exports, as reported by state media. This action frames the new rules as part of a broader, direct pressure campaign on shipping in a sensitive international corridor.
Diplomatic sources monitoring Hormuz developments told *Erem News* that the new rules arrive as military and political pressure on Tehran accumulates. This pressure includes recent exchanges of fire between US and Iranian forces near the strait, US warnings to shipping companies against paying any fees to Iran for passage, and the seizure of the "Ocean Koi."
These sources view the lengthy questionnaire as inseparable from an Iranian effort to manufacture additional tension on top of an existing crisis. The goal, they say, is to portray the strait as a space subject to Tehran’s terms, forcing companies to navigate between the risk of US sanctions and the threat of Iranian action at sea. This behavior, they added, raises the cost of Iran’s own maneuvering by giving Washington and its allies broader political and legal justification to tighten pressure, complicating any near-term return to negotiations.
The US Treasury Department has warned that paying "transit fees" to Iran could expose shipping companies to sanctions. Meanwhile, the Japanese firm Mitsui O.S.K. Lines stated that three of its ships transited the strait in April without paying any fees, adhering to international navigation rules.
According to the diplomatic sources, Tehran is using the new rules to confuse calculations of retaliation, presenting the measures as routine transit arrangements. This comes as field developments tell a different story, with tanker seizures, a cargo ship damaged by a projectile in the strait days ago, and US-Iranian exchanges of fire that threatened a truce in place for about a month. Linking transit to prior permission, the sources estimate, increases the likelihood of graduated responses against Iran, as affected states may treat the step as part of a deliberate disruption of navigation rather than an isolated measure.
Legally, the Iranian step clashes with the international regime for navigation in straits. The Strait of Hormuz is a strait used for international navigation, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) enshrines the right of “transit passage” as continuous and expeditious passage through such straits. The convention also states that states bordering straits may not hinder or suspend transit passage. This framework makes turning transit into a prior political permission a practical departure from the principle of freedom of navigation, even as Iran clings to narrower interpretations to expand its authority over adjacent waters.
Although Iran is not a party to UNCLOS, that does not grant it the right to turn an international strait into a sovereign interrogation point. The United States, also not a party to the convention, treats the right of transit passage in international straits as customary international law.
In the final analysis, Iran’s new rules push the Hormuz file toward further escalation. They place international navigation before a coercive procedure that multiplies the existing confusion in ship movements and raises the political and legal cost of dealing with Tehran. The Iranian behavior becomes an additional pressure factor on the crisis trajectory, providing Washington and its allies with broader justifications to tighten responses against Tehran.
