Iran’s Supreme National Security Council announced on Thursday that no fees will be levied on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz for a period of sixty days, with the government in Tehran absorbing the costs itself. The move, framed as the implementation of paragraph five of what both Iranian and regional media are calling the “Islamabad memorandum”, marks the most concrete operational step yet in a sudden US-Iranian understanding. Ships must now submit requests to the newly activated Persian Gulf Waterway Management authority at PGSA.ir, which has been ordered to process applications rapidly. Citing “special conditions and specific safety risks”, the council said vessels will be required to follow designated routes and schedules to permit a gradual increase in traffic, adding that Iranian teams are already working to clear mines from the shipping lane.

Viewed from Western capitals, the arrangement is a striking departure after forty-seven years of official enmity—a span during which an entire Iranian generation reached middle age without ever experiencing normal bilateral relations. The memorandum, reportedly finalised in the Pakistani capital, appears to grant Tehran a formal management role over the strait while temporarily suspending any cost to international shipping. For global energy markets, the chokepoint handles roughly a fifth of the world’s oil consumption, and any framework that reduces the risk of disruption or miscalculation carries immediate strategic weight.

Inside Iran, however, the détente is already exposing familiar fault lines. Hardline figures such as Hossein Shariatmadari have publicly insisted that sovereignty over Hormuz could instead be used to “confiscate the property of America and its allies”, and threatened that any US naval blockade would be answered by firing 2,500-kilometre-range missiles with heavy warheads towards the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Such rhetoric, amplified by conservative media, signals that the security establishment is far from unanimous and that the sixty-day window may be as much a test of internal discipline as of external compliance.

For observers in London and other European capitals, the diplomatic opening carries a further irony that Iranian commentators themselves have seized upon. The lifespan of official anti-Americanism almost exactly matches that of compulsory hijab enforcement inside the country—both born of the early post-revolutionary years and intended to define the new system’s identity. As one Tehran-based analysis noted, the regime now appears willing to make peace with Washington while refusing any such accommodation with its own women, a juxtaposition that will shape how the wider world judges the Islamic Republic’s next chapter.

Whether the sixty-day fee waiver becomes a permanent arrangement or collapses under the weight of hardline opposition remains uncertain. The council’s statement promised that “executive arrangements and details will be announced”, leaving ample room for both technical refinement and political manoeuvre. For now, the Strait of Hormuz is set to operate under a fragile, internationally significant experiment—one that tests not only Tehran’s ability to manage a vital waterway cooperatively, but also the durability of a diplomatic breakthrough few would have predicted even a year ago.