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Iran lets a number of Iraqi oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz

By Staff Writer  |  23 August 2026

Iraq's president told a policy conference in Baghdad that passage had been eased for some ships carrying Iraqi crude, while traffic through the waterway stays far below its level before the war.

Iran has granted permission for a number of Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, after repeated requests from Baghdad through several channels. The Iraqi president, Nizar Amidi, said on Saturday that passage had been eased for some ships carrying Iraqi oil in recent days, and that his government had discussed the export of Iraqi crude through the strait with Iranian officials. He was speaking at the eighth Baghdad Dialogue conference.

There is facilitation for some tankers carrying Iraqi oil in the Strait of Hormuz

Nizar Amidi, President of Iraq

Iran's state news agency reported the same day that the special permission had been one of Baghdad's main requests during a visit to Iraq by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament. The president gave no figure for the number of ships and no detail of the terms, and said the position in the strait remained complicated.

A producer without a fleet

Iraq produced around 4 million barrels of oil a day before the war began, and its revenue depends almost entirely on selling them. It does not own the ships that carry them, which is the practical difficulty behind the request to Tehran.

We have a problem transporting oil due to the absence of a national tanker

Nizar Amidi, President of Iraq

Traffic through the strait remains well below the level recorded before the war, and ships in the area continue to come under attack.

Baghdad is working on routes that avoid the waterway altogether. The prime minister, Ali Al-Zaidi, said on Friday that the government was expanding exports through the Turkish port of Ceyhan and preparing to begin exporting oil through Baniyas in Syria and Aqaba in Jordan. Each of those routes depends on pipeline capacity and on the agreement of a third state, so none of them replaces the strait quickly.

The wider exposure

The president set out plainly how much his country stands to lose if the fighting widens, in terms that put Iraq immediately behind Iran in the order of damage.

We will be among the countries most affected after Iran if the escalation continues, given the economic interdependence and our complete reliance on oil

Nizar Amidi, President of Iraq

He said the government would not allow Iraqi territory to be used to launch attacks on other countries, and that attacks mounted from inside Iraq against countries in the region had no justification. He repeated a commitment to bring all weapons under the control of the state, through a process led by Iraq, and the government has set 30 September as the date by which that is to be done.

What it means for anyone shipping into the region

A permission granted to one country's cargoes is not a reopening. It is a narrow arrangement, granted case by case, and it says nothing about when ordinary commercial traffic resumes. Contractors and suppliers moving plant, steel or equipment into or out of the Gulf should continue to plan on the longer routings and the insurance terms that have applied since the closure, and should read any easing reported for a particular flag or cargo as exactly that. The strait, as the president put it, affects the whole world and not only Iraq.