Iran lawmaker urges unity over delayed parliament reopening

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the massive supply shock triggered by disruptions in the Persian Gulf has been partially offset by excess oil production accumulated last year and in early 2026, emergency stock releases by industrialized countries, Saudi Arabia's and the UAE's use of export routes bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, and a sharp decline in global oil demand led by China.

The scale of the disruption remains enormous. Oil production across the Persian Gulf has fallen by more than 10 million barrels per day over recent months, resulting in a cumulative production loss of roughly 1.3 billion barrels.

At the same time, global oil demand contracted by about 5.5 million barrels per day in the second quarter of 2026 as economic activity slowed.

China, the world's largest crude importer, has reduced its oil imports by roughly 40 percent—or about 4.6 million barrels per day—over recent months, making weaker demand one of the biggest reasons prices have retreated.

Even so, the region's oil exports remain about 25 percent below their February levels, and restoring pre-war export capacity is likely to take many months. In some cases—particularly Qatar's damaged liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities—a full recovery could take years.

Another temporary buffer has come from floating storage. Iran alone holds around 150 million barrels of crude at sea, while Washington's two-month waiver allowing Iranian oil exports has also helped ease market tensions.

Those inventories are helping cushion the supply shock, but they cannot replace the region's lost production capacity.

Meanwhile, production of crude oil and other petroleum liquids across the Persian Gulf region remains roughly 45 percent below February levels. Even Saudi Arabia—which can bypass the Strait of Hormuz through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea—is producing well below pre-war levels, underscoring the scale of the disruption.

In total, the loss of roughly 1.3 billion barrels of production has only been partially offset by the release of more than 300 million barrels from the strategic reserves of industrialized countries.

Even under the most optimistic scenario, repairing the damage inflicted on global oil markets by the Strait of Hormuz crisis is unlikely before the middle of next year.

Geopolitical risks also remain elevated. Thursday's attack on a commercial vessel near Oman underscored how fragile maritime security remains despite the ceasefire. Shipping costs in waters south of Iran have risen to roughly 5.5 times their pre-war levels, while tanker charter rates have surged to nearly nine times their pre-war levels.

The disruption extends well beyond crude oil. Exports of petrochemicals, metals, fertilizers, helium and other raw materials from the Arab Gulf continue to face severe constraints, with implications for global industry, agriculture, supply chains and international trade.

Oil prices returning to the $72–74 range should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that the crisis has passed. They instead reflect a market being sustained by emergency inventories and demand destruction rather than recovering supply.

Until shipping through the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal and Persian Gulf production fully recovers, the global economy will remain vulnerable to renewed energy shocks and heightened market volatility.

Rare public dispute has erupted inside Iran's Assembly of Experts after a majority of its members issued a statement on the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, prompting an extraordinary public rebuke from the body's own leadership within hours.

The exchange has exposed signs of growing infighting at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic.

The normally quiet body, responsible for appointing and theoretically overseeing the supreme leader, has become the latest arena for disagreement over negotiations with Washington, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the limits of compromise with the United States.

The controversy began after more than 60 of the Assembly's 84 members published a statement on Saturday that ventured far beyond the body's customary role, laying out detailed positions on the memorandum, the Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon, nuclear negotiations and retaliation against the United States and Israel.

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Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped after the latest escalation between the United States and Iran, according to Al Jazeera’s Open Source Unit.

The unit said it tracked 48 vessels transiting the strait from Friday, June 26, to Sunday, June 28, during two separate timeframes.

Those included 23 oil and gas tankers, seven bulk carriers carrying commodities such as iron, coal, grain, fertilizer and cement, and 19 cargo or container ships.

The figure marked a decline from the 70 transits recorded by Marine Traffic on Wednesday and 54 on Thursday, before the latest exchange of strikes between Washington and Tehran.

Asian stocks wobbled Monday as Iran and the United States agreed to halt recent hostilities that had cast a shadow over their interim peace deal, while oil prices remained supported by uncertainty and the dollar held near a one-year high.

The return to diplomacy follows several days of tit-for-tat strikes after an Iranian projectile hit a cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz last week, with both sides accusing the other of violating the interim ceasefire.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures gained 0.4% in early trading. South Korea's KOSPI fell nearly 2%, while Japan's Nikkei slipped 1%, leaving MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares down 0.4%.

The exchange has exposed signs of growing infighting at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic.

The normally quiet body, responsible for appointing and theoretically overseeing the supreme leader, has become the latest arena for disagreement over negotiations with Washington, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the limits of compromise with the United States.

The controversy began after more than 60 of the Assembly's 84 members published a statement on Saturday that ventured far beyond the body's customary role, laying out detailed positions on the memorandum, the Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon, nuclear negotiations and retaliation against the United States and Israel.

The signatories thanked Iranian negotiators but warned them to learn from what they called the failures of previous talks, adding that observing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's red lines was a religious obligation and that violating them was "not permissible under any circumstances."

In one of its most inflammatory passages, the statement called for those responsible for Ali Khamenei's killing, including the US president and Israeli prime minister, to be punished, saying anyone with access to them had a religious duty to kill them.

The statement also described reopening the Strait of Hormuz while Israeli operations continued in Lebanon as a "strategic error" and insisted Iran's nuclear rights should be excluded from negotiations.

The intervention was extraordinary because the Assembly almost never comments on day-to-day policy. Better known for infrequent formal sessions and ritual expressions of support for the leadership, it has also come under increased scrutiny following the opaque process that elevated Mojtaba Khamenei after his father's death during the war.

Within hours, however, the Assembly's presidium and secretariat issued a rare public clarification that appeared to rebuke the manner in which the statement had been released.

While reaffirming support for Mojtaba Khamenei and insisting officials must follow his guidance on the memorandum and negotiations, the secretariat said it was unprecedented for a group of members to issue a statement under the Assembly's name outside its established procedures.

It said official positions should be issued through the full Assembly, its chairman, the presidium or the secretariat, and argued that the signatories should have sought broader discussion to preserve the body's unity.

The response immediately drew fire from Raja News, an outlet aligned with ultrahardline factions that oppose negotiations with Washington and are often critical of Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has led the talks.

In an editorial, Raja News argued it was the secretariat—not the signatories—that had undermined the Assembly's unity. It noted that the secretariat itself acknowledged that non-signatories did not necessarily disagree with the statement's substance.

The outlet mocked the suggestion that senior clerics should have sought permission before explaining the supreme leader's red lines to the public and asked why such an overwhelming majority had felt compelled to bypass the body's leadership in the first place.

Rather than criticizing the signatories, Raja News argued, the Assembly's leadership should explain why confidence in its handling of sensitive issues had deteriorated to that point.

In its sharpest criticism, the outlet suggested similar questions had surrounded the Assembly leadership's handling of the selection of Iran's third supreme leader following Ali Khamenei's death—an unusually direct challenge to one of the Islamic Republic's most closely guarded episodes.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, was reported to have traveled to Qom, Iran's center of religious authority, where senior officials often seek the backing of influential clerics during periods of political tension.

The visit suggests the government is also seeking to shore up clerical support as it navigates the increasingly contentious politics surrounding the post-war settlement.

The competing statements—and the storm they triggered within the hardline camp—suggest that arguments over the memorandum with Washington, and over who has the authority to define and defend Mojtaba Khamenei's red lines, have reached institutions that traditionally operate behind closed doors.

For a body long associated with silence and unanimity, the public split offers a rare glimpse into the political strains emerging inside the Islamic Republic's highest clerical establishment.