Tankers urged not to pay toll to Iran for use of strait

Tankers urged not to pay toll to Iran for use of strait11 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleOliver Smith,Business producerandLucy Hooker,Business reporterIan Forsyth/Getty ImagesTankers that want to pass through the Strait of Hormuz are being advised not to pay money to Iran to allow them through, after a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday failed to get traffic moving through the waterway again.The agreement was supposed to include reopening the strait but Iran has suggested that ships must seek its permission or they may still be "targeted and destroyed" and has said it could levy a fee in return for safe passage."We do not believe the payment of tolls is the right way to go about this," said Phil Belcher, from Intertanko, a group representing tanker firms."We are amazed that this appears to be one of the starting points of negotiations," he told the BBC.US vice president JD Vance is meeting representatives of the Iranian government in Islamabad in Pakistan on Saturday to try to nail down details of a ceasefire deal that already appears to be in jeopardy after continued air strikes in Israel and Lebanon and a stalemate over the vital shipping lane.Belcher said Intertanko, which represents 190 independent tanker operators and more than half of the world's oil tanker fleet, was still advising members not to use the strait as "an attack could take place at any time"."We do not believe the Strait is safe until there is a lasting cessation of conflict, where all attacks against ships have halted and where there is some sort of coalition-of-the-willing oversight for ships to go through, where Iran does not have sovereignty of the strait," he said.Charging a toll was "against the whole idea of international laws and free passage through international waterways", he said."At the moment the Strait of Hormuz is under the de facto rule of the Iranian military," Belcher said.The Iranian Revolutiona...