Iran exempts India from Hormuz shipping restrictions along with China Iraq and Qatar

Iran has exempted merchant vessels from India, China, Iraq and Qatar from its restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, Amir Hayat-Moghaddam, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, announced to the Iranian Students' News Agency on Tuesday. The same week, an unidentified aerial object struck the Indian-flagged MSV Al Jusufi near Limah on the Omani coast, killing one seafarer; the Omani coast guard rescued his 13 crewmates.

The exemption list reads as a ledger rather than a principle. Indian and Chinese vessels will pay transit fees, Qatari ships cross without charge, the Indian channel is kept open in part so medicines can keep moving, and the Chinese exemption is understood to secure Beijing's political support. The United States is reportedly not intercepting ships under the four exempted flags — the same waterway where, according to the European Union, the Revolutionary Guards' navy now requires vessels to submit identification, cargo details and intended destination before granting permission to transit.

For India the arithmetic is unforgiving. Nearly 90 percent of the crude the country burns is imported, and even after New Delhi diversified toward Russian, American, West African and UAE supplies since February, roughly 30 percent still transits Hormuz — down from nearly 70 percent before the war. For other imports there is no alternative route at all: about 90 percent of India's LPG and more than half of its LNG from Qatar and the UAE move through the strait.

The bill arrives in crews as well as fees. The International Maritime Organization recorded at least 70 attacks on merchant ships between February and August, with 19 seafarers killed. Fifteen of the 24 Indian nationals killed in the West Asia conflict so far were seafarers. The latest, Gandhar Nahim Ajij of Gujarat, died on Monday; on 6 October, eleven Indians were injured when a projectile hit the Panama-flagged tanker MT On Peace inside the strait.

The war began on 28 February with the American and Israeli attack on Iran; a 15 June interim agreement was supposed to end the fighting and reopen the strait to commerce, and diplomacy has stalled since. New Delhi's repeated calls for unimpeded passage through international waterways now come with a toll attached.

Arrangements are being made to repatriate Ajij's remains and the 13 rescued crew to India, whose vessels will now pay Tehran for the same passage.