‘First revenue’ from Hormuz toll deposited into Central Bank – Iranian deputy speakerpublished at 10:49 BST
10:49 BSTBreaking
Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian
The deputy speaker of Iran’s parliament, Hamidreza Haji
Babaei, says the first revenues collected from tolls imposed on ships using the
Strait of Hormuz have been deposited into the Central Bank account.
According to a report from the Tasnim News Agency, he has
not given further details about how the revenue was collected, or who paid it, and the BBC
cannot independently verify his claim.
Before the current ceasefire Tehran had said it had limited
the passage to what it called “friendly” countries, and there were talks of
collecting tolls from vessels passing through the strait.
But there had been no clarification during that time about
how much – or if – Iran was charging a fee for passage.
For example, back in late March, Iran’s embassy in India
denied claims that Tehran was charging vessels $2m to pass through.
Today another senior Iranian MP, Alireza Salimi, said to Tasnim:
“I have heard from reliable sources that Iran has collected fees from ships
passing through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“The amount and fees collected from each of these ships vary
depending on the type and amount of cargo and the level of risk they carry, and
Iran determines how and to what extent these fees are collected. We determine
the rules,” he says.
US President Donald Trump has previously threatened ships that pay tolls to Iran to use the Strait of Hormuz – we’ll have more on that in our next post.