DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran's top negotiator said the Strait of Hormuz will "never return" to its prewar status. New attacks on shipping and an alleged Iranian strike on an Omani island raised fresh concerns about the world's most important oil chokepoint.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and chief negotiator, made the comments in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera published Wednesday.

Ghalibaf said Iran and Oman had reached an understanding to oversee the waterway as part of Tehran's seven-point proposal to end the eight-month conflict with the United States and Israel.

"There are no 'free waters' there," Ghalibaf said. He argued that the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea does not apply to the strait. "The regulations within the Strait of Hormuz are governed by the laws of the two littoral states that border it," he said.

Iran's conditions include lifting the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions, releasing frozen Iranian funds, ending fighting on all fronts and an explicit........

© International Business Times