Iran says it has agreed with two coastal states on Hormuz shipping lanes

The significance lies less in the lanes themselves than in the venue: a parliamentary committee, not a maritime authority, is shaping Hormuz transit arrangements, which signals that shipping policy there is being treated as a security and sovereignty matter rather than a technical one. The two unnamed coastal states matter because any bilateral understanding on lanes can shift transit risk for tanker operators and insurers without any formal multilateral framework. What remains unclear — the parties, the terms, and whether the arrangement is operational or merely political — is the open question worth watching.