Iran on Friday evening indicated that it would allow safe passage to Indian ships through the Strait of Hormuz in a matter of “hours”.

Later at night, Reuters cited “four sources” to report that Tehran had allowed two Indian-flagged LPG carriers to sail through the Strait of Hormuz.

The development came on a day the conflict killed two Indians in Muscat, taking the overall Indian death toll to five, and left 10 other Indians injured.

“Yes, yes, you can see that after two or three hours,” Iran’s ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, had told reporters in the evening when asked about safe passage for Indian ships.

The Indian side provided no official confirmation. Just a couple of hours before Fathali’s media interaction, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had failed to provide any updates.

Instead, he had referred reporters to his answer to the same question on Thursday, when he confirmed that India was talking to Iran for the safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait.

A crude tanker that had sailed through the Strait of Hormuz around March 1 was expected to arrive in India on Saturday carrying Saudi Arabian oil, Reuters added, citing two sources and data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

The two Indian deaths on Friday came at Sohar city in Muscat, Oman, the additional secretary (Gulf) in the external affairs ministry, Aseem R. Mahajan, said.

Of the 10 Indians injured, five have been discharged and the remaining five are still in hospital but without serious injuries.

On Friday evening, 27 Indian ships were in the Gulf, 24 of them to the west of the Strait of Hormuz and 3 to its east. One Indian-flagged ship that had earlier been to the east of the Strait has sailed towards Africa.

Fathali’s assurance came after back-to-back calls between Iran and India on Thursday night. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for the first time since the conflict began on February 28, and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had a conversation with his Iran counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi.

During these two conversations, Tehran made it clear that it expected the BRICS grouping — currently chaired by India — to “play a constructive role at the current juncture in supporting regional and global stability and security”.

The Indian readout on the conversation between Modi and Pezeshkian did not mention this. Nor did Modi or Jaishankar in their X posts on their conversations with Pezeshkian and Araghchi.

On Friday, Jaiswal mentioned it at his inter-ministerial briefing, saying Jaishankar and Araghchi had discussed BRICS during their phone conversation.

The grouping is made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Getting a consensus within BRICS is a tough ask given that both Iran and the UAE are members. Iran had targeted multiple locations across the Emirates in its retaliatory attacks after the US and Israel launched air attacks on Iranian territory. The military escalation has added a fresh strain to an already difficult relationship soured by a dispute over three islands in the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s Mehr News Agency said Pezeshkian had told Modi that Iran was committed to expanding cooperation and interaction with India and friendly countries within the framework of international organisations, including BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

“He emphasised the necessity of active and constructive role of BRICS to safeguard the peace, stability and security in the region,” the news agency reported.

The Iranian foreign ministry’s readout on the Araghchi-Jaishankar conversation said the Iranian minister had “stressed the necessity for regional and international bodies and organisations to condemn the military aggression against Iran”.

Highlighting the importance and position of BRICS as a forum for developing multilateral cooperation, Araghchi “deemed it essential for the institution to play a constructive role at the current juncture in supporting regional and global stability and security”.

Jaishankar, according to the readout, expressed India’s readiness to expand bilateral and multilateral cooperation within regional and international forums.

“He also emphasised the importance of finding a path to strengthen sustainable stability and security in the region as a collective necessity.”

Mahajan said 150,000 Indians had come back home over the past fortnight on commercial flights.

Jaiswal said 170 Indians stranded in Iran had crossed the northern border into Azerbaijan. While several of them have reached India, the others are expected to return over the next few days on commercial flights.