Iran Parliament Advances Bill to Bar Sanctioning Nations From Hormuz

Iran’s parliament isn’t drafting a single sweeping law on the Strait of Hormuz — it’s assembling one piece by piece, in public, over the course of a month, and Sunday’s approval of Article 9 was simply the latest plank: a formal ban on transit through the strait for any country, company or individual that has sanctioned Iran.

Committee spokesperson Hassan Ghashghavi said the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee approved the article as part of the broader “Strategic Action Plan for Security and Sustainable Development in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.” Under the provision, Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff will determine what counts as a “hostile action” against the country, while the Supreme National Security Council will separately identify which specific countries, companies or individuals have imposed sanctions or frozen Iranian assets — splitting enforcement authority between the military and the security apparatus rather than housing it in one body.

This single article is only the most recent addition to a bill that’s been moving through Iran’s legislative process since early August, and the pieces already assembled are considerably broader than a sanctions-transit ban alone. The Internal Affairs and Councils Committee approved a provision barring transit of US, Israeli and “hostile state” equipment on August 10; a leaked draft reported by the Hormuz Letter and Fars described additional provisions banning any Israeli cargo, civilian or military, and barring vessels linked to actions against what Iran calls the “Axis of Resistance,” alongside fines up to 20% of cargo value for violators. Entry into the strait would be managed by Iran alone, while exit would be jointly managed with Oman — a detail that lines up with the parallel Iran-Oman shipping corridor negotiations Tehran has described separately in recent weeks.

The bill’s underlying logic traces to a specific legal claim Iran has leaned on throughout the standoff: Article 5 of the June 17 Islamabad memorandum of understanding, brokered by Pakistan, which Tehran interprets as placing responsibility for reopening and managing the strait squarely in Iranian hands. Washington’s subsequent naval blockade and military pressure in the strait is, in Iran’s framing, an attempt to undermine that sovereign authority — making this legislative process as much a formal assertion of legal claim as a practical enforcement mechanism. Then-Security Council secretary Mohammad-Bagher Zolghadr said as recently as last month that the waterway would stay closed until Washington “corrects its behavior,” a position current secretary Mohsen Rezaei has continued articulating in near-identical terms since taking on the Hormuz messaging portfolio.

What the bill doesn’t resolve is how it interacts with the parallel, more conciliatory diplomatic track. Iran and Oman have reportedly finished agreeing on the geographic details of a shipping route through the strait, and Rezaei said this week a formal signing could happen within days — a negotiated corridor arrangement that sits awkwardly next to a parliamentary bill built around banning entire categories of countries outright. Whether the two tracks are complementary (a legal framework alongside a technical corridor) or in tension (diplomacy undercut by legislative maximalism) will likely depend on how strictly Iran enforces Article 9 against countries that are simultaneously negotiating with it in good faith through the Oman channel.

With the committee continuing to review the bill article by article rather than voting on a finished text, the coming weeks will show whether this legislative process produces an enforceable law or simply documents, in increasing legal detail, a negotiating position Iran has held since the war began — one Washington has already rejected once and shows no sign of accepting now.