In a significant albeit underreported development for global energy, and for the US-Iran standoff in the Persian Gulf, Iranian parliament has this week announced it is exempting several key trading partniers from its oil transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz.
The move was first unvieled Tuesday by Ahmad Hayat-Moghaddam, Vice Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, at a moment Iranian export flows are struggling under the many months-long US naval blockade of the country's ports.
"We have currently exempted India, China, Iraq and Qatar from transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. Ships from these countries pass freely," Hayat-Moghaddam stated in an interview to the Iranian Student’s News Agency (SNA).
via Associated PressHe described that this also aimed at shoring up "mutual interests" among countries that have long done business with one another.
The Iranian official also sought to frame the change as arising out of joint humanitarian concerns:
Tehran is facilitating the movement of Indian ships for the purpose of medicines, while Chinese ships are exempted from the restrictions to “secure” Beijing’s
