The reopening that Washington announced last week ran straight into a contradiction on Saturday 20 June.
US Central Command reported that commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz rose, with at least 55 merchant ships carrying around 17 million barrels of oil transiting that day and safe passage "intact". On the same day, Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters declared the strait closed, citing what it called US and Israeli breaches of the post-war memorandum and the continuing strikes in southern Lebanon. The IRGC Navy issued a blunt warning to shipping: "absolutely refrain from any movement in the Strait of Hormuz until further notice."
The picture is muddied further by Tehran's own internal split. Iran's Foreign Ministry had said on Friday that shipping was proceeding under the 18 June memorandum, before the military command announced the closure a day later — an open-versus-closed contradiction inside the same government, flagged by multiple outlets.
- **The deciders are commercial, not diplomatic.** Hapag-Lloyd's vessels in the Gulf stayed put despite the announced reopening; a spokesman said there was "no indication right now when we would move". As Eurasia Group's Gregory Brew put it, it is not Iran or the US that decides the strait is open — it is the shipping and insurance companies. - **The numbers are recovering, not normal.** CENTCOM's 55-ship day is a sharp rise on the near-standstill of the past months, but traffic remains far below the roughly 2,000-plus monthly transits of pre-war norms. A handful of operators moving is not a reopened waterway. - **The legal status is fluid.** Iran's interim free-transit window runs on a clock, after which Tehran has signalled it will discuss strait administration — and possible tolls — with Oman and the Gulf states.
**Operator implication.** For anyone planning maritime, crew-change or land movement around the Gulf, the working assumption this weekend is contested, not open. A government issuing a closure order and a navy warning vessels off is a hard data point that outranks a transit count. Re-plan off the maritime advisories and your underwriters' posture, hold the Gulf footing where it is, and treat conflicting official statements as the signal: this is unresolved, and a single incident could reverse the traffic curve overnight.
