Iran’s army has acknowledged that a small number of foreign vessels and oil tankers have passed through the Strait of Hormuz, though it insists the traffic is a tiny fraction of what the waterway handled before the war.

Army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia made the remarks on Tuesday, without naming the ships or their flag states. He said the passage was negligible compared with the volume that moved through the strait before the US war on Iran began.

The admission followed a similar acknowledgement from Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who conceded that the “enemy” had managed to get some ships through while maintaining that Iranian forces retain complete control of the strait. Another Iranian military spokesperson has also claimed that an “Iranian order” prevails in the waterway.

The Strait of Hormuz has been at the centre of the conflict since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Before the war, roughly 3,000 vessels transited the strait each month, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, and about a fifth of global oil trade moved through it. Traffic dropped to near zero after the fighting began, and the waterway has been effectively closed since early March. Washington imposed its own blockade on ships entering or leaving Iranian ports on April 13.

Tehran has since shaped what does get through, steering commercial ships along routes that pass through Iranian waters and are subject to checks by its navy and port authorities. Analysts say the limited passage could signal a modest easing of the supply disruptions that pushed Brent crude as high as $126 a barrel.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the strait remains largely open and that oil flows are close to pre-war levels, apart from Iranian crude. Iran’s account of the traffic differs sharply from that. Ghalibaf has separately warned that if Iran cannot sell oil in the region, no one else will be able to, and that no infrastructure would be safe without guarantees for Iran’s security.