Rubio says Iran charging for Strait of Hormuz passage “not acceptable”

Rubio said “there is not a country in the world that should accept” Iran’s effort to “create a tolling system” to charge commercial vessels a fee to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterway – through which about a fifth of the global oil supply typically passed prior to the U.S. and Israel launching their joint war with Iran — was open to all ships until the conflict began. Tehran has said it is working in conjunction with Oman, the other nation with a coastline in the strait, “to develop a mechanism” to ensure “transit through the Strait of Hormuz is conducted in the safest possible manner.”

Oman has not confirmed the nature of any coordination with Iran on such a new system.

Rubio said Tehran was “trying to convince Oman” to join “in this tolling system in an international waterway.”

“That’s just not acceptable. It can’t happen,” Rubio said of any Iranian bid to impose regularized demands for payment for ships’ passage. “If that were to happen in the Straits of Hormuz, it will happen in five other places around the world.”

A senior Iranian official argued in a news article published on Thursday that Iran, as a coastal nation of the waterway, was within its rights to impose new restrictions on ships using the Strait of Hormuz due to a “fundamental change of circumstances” brought about by the U.S.-Israeli war launched almost three months ago.