Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said talks with Oman on a new shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz were in their final stages, in a report to the cabinet, news agency Fars reported on August 2.

The talks aim to establish a new traffic separation scheme through the strait that Tehran says would protect its sovereign rights, but Iran has stressed that any agreement with Oman would not by itself reopen the waterway, which it has kept closed to shipping during its confrontation with the US. The strait normally carries about a quarter of the world's seaborne oil.

The Iranian position sits against US President Donald Trump's claim, in a Truth Social post late on August 1, that the outlines of a deal to end the war had been agreed, including the immediate, complete and total opening of the strait and an end to Iran's nuclear threat.

Trump said he would order US forces to hold off on new strikes, claiming Middle East allies had reached the (parameters) of a deal to end the five-month war. Iran's acting defence minister Majid Ebn-e-Reza dismissed the pullback as psychological warfare, saying Iran's forces treated every threat as real.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the understanding with Oman was a necessary but not sufficient condition for reopening the strait, in an interview with state television.

"The closure of the Strait of Hormuz was not because of Oman, but because of US treaty violations, the naval blockade of Iran and the harassing actions the US has taken against Iran," Baghaei said. He said reopening the strait was a completely different equation.

Baghaei said the talks with Oman had run for about two months, beginning shortly after the ceasefire that ended the war, and that Iran had shared route maps prepared by its relevant agencies with the Omani side. He said the aim was to agree a route that was neither the northern nor the southern corridor, but one that secured both sides' sovereign rights.

He said the internationally recognised route approved by the International Maritime Organisation had, from 1968 until the war, passed entirely through Omani territorial waters. Under the ceasefire understanding, management of the strait was to be handled by Iran in consultation with Oman and regional states, he said.

The Fars news outlet said numerous ships remained stuck in the northern corridor of the strait in Iranian waters, able to pass only if Iran's armed forces allowed.

Baghaei said US intervention had repeatedly disrupted the talks rather than facilitating them, and that Iran would not let its national interests be affected by threats from US officials.