Friday 17th April, 2026
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is reported to have told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in a telephone conversation, that reopening the Strait of Hormuz is a unanimous demand from the international community. He has stressed that Iran’s sovereignty, security, and legitimate rights should be respected as a littoral state of the Strait of Hormuz, but the freedom of navigation and safety through the strait should be ensured. One cannot but agree with the Chinese Foreign Minister.
A prolonged closure of the Hormuz Strait will only aggravate global economic woes and therefore be counterproductive. Tehran has a lot to gain on the diplomatic front; even some staunch allies of the US have taken exception to US-Israeli military aggression against Iran. It ought to take the shifting dynamics of the conflict into consideration and change its strategy accordingly.
The Chinese Foreign Minister has rightly noted that the current situation has reached a critical juncture between war and peace and the window of peace is opening. Iran must seize this opportunity. Araghchi has informed Wang Yi that his country is willing to continue to seek a rational and realistic solution through peaceful negotiations. It is hoped that the fragile ceasefire will be extended, and Pakistan will be able to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table again and help work out a compromise formula.
The US has imposed a naval blockade on Iran, targeting ships that enter or leave the Iranian ports, especially though the Hormuz Strait, through which about 20% of world oil supply passes. It has already turned back several ships that sought to enter Iran. Ironically, the US is doing what it has condemned Iran for—restricting international navigation through the Hormuz Strait. With its naval blockade, Washington is likely to incur more international opprobrium. It still has no way of forcing Iran to allow all ships to sail through the strategic chokepoint freely. However, the US naval blockade is likely to have a crippling impact on Iranian oil exports. With both Iran and the US using the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic lever, the countries that have nothing to do with the conflict have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis in the Gulf region.
Some experts are of the view that the China-Iran railway will help mitigate the impact of the US naval blockade and counter Washington’s efforts to isolate China and Iran, but this option could give rise to unforeseen logical and geopolitical issues.
About one-third of global seaborne trade in fertiliser reportedly passes through the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf countries are key producers of nitrogen fertilisers. They also manufacture about 20% of phosphate fertilisers and 25% of global Sulphur. Urea prices have increased by 25% in the US, and the American Farm Bureau Federation has written to President Donald Trump, warning that production shocks will threaten national food security. The situation is far worse in the developing world. Sri Lanka is running out of its fertiliser stocks, and farmers are up in arms. Máximo Torero, the Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, has warned that the ongoing disruption to the Strait of Hormuz trade corridor has triggered “one of the most severe shocks to global commodity flows in recent years, with significant implications for food security, agricultural production, and global markets”.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is playing politics with its national energy conservation strategy amidst a global crisis while all other countries are strictly enforcing regulations in place to curtail fuel consumption. The suspension of the QR-based fuel quota system on account of the traditional New Year celebrations must have led to a huge increase in fuel consumption for non-essential purposes, as evident from the record revenue from the expressways. What should have been done was to increase the fuel quota instead of suspending the rationing system so that the public would be compelled to consume fuel sparingly during the festive season. The West Asian conflict is far from over, and the crisis management strategies must not be compromised.
from The Island https://ift.tt/hfZRA5x
