Iran Opens Strait of Hormuz to China and India as U.S. Blockade Continues

In a significant, albeit underreported development for global energy, and for the US-Iran standoff in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian parliament has this week announced it is exempting several key trading partners from its oil transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. The move was first unveiled Tuesday by Ahmad Hayat-Moghaddam, Vice Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, at a moment when 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). He described that this also aimed at shoring up "mutual interests" among countries that have long done business with one another.