The US blockade of the Iranian blockade is looking increasingly more porous.
Iran said 35 ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours in coordination with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian state broadcaster reported on Friday. The navy had already reported on Wednesday that 26 ships had passed through the strait within 24 hours. On Friday, the data provider Kpler confirmed only 10 passages on Wednesday. This represented an increase from the four passages recorded the previous day.
The armed forces said the vessels included oil tankers, cargo ships and other merchant ships.
Tehran has repeatedly stressed that the Strait of Hormuz is not blocked. In practice, however, shipping companies must coordinate with Iranian contact points and are then only allowed to pass through a corridor near the Iranian coast. Then they have to also obtain permission to cross the US blockade located further out in the Arabian Gulf.
Iran's leadership charges high fees (paid in bitcoin) for this. International law experts said such fees violate the right of transit.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Sweden for a NATO foreign ministers meeting, condemned Iran's attempts at creating a tolling system for the strait. "I don't know of a country in the world that's in favor of it except Iran, but there's no country in the world that should accept it," he said.
Rubio confirmed a previous report from Bloomberg, saying Iran was trying to convince Oman to join the tolling system "in an international waterway."
He said there is a UN resolution sponsored by Bahrain and "the highest number of co-sponsors of any resolution ever before" in front of the UN Security Council, but admitted that "a couple of countries" are "thinking about vetoing it" which Rubio called "lamentable."
The United States is doing all it can to prevent an Iranian toll system from being established in the strait. Such a system is "just not acceptable. It can't happen," he said. He assumed all NATO countries had backed the resolution or would do so soon.
Rubio warned that if the Iranians are successful in pushing the toll system through it could happen elsewhere.