UAE and Bahrain only Middle East states joining UK coalition to pressure Iran over Hormuz
Britain is set to host a summit on Thursday aimed at forming an international coalition to pressure Iran into reopening the Strait of Hormuz, after US President Donald Trump said the UK and other countries should "go get their own oil".
Key countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan, are not attending the summit, which will be held online.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are the only Middle Eastern nations joining the initiative, which is also being joined by France, Australia, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan.
Representatives of around 35 countries in total are expected to join, including Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Nigeria, New Zealand, South Korea, Sweden and the Netherlands.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Wednesday that the meeting, to be hosted by UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, will discuss ways to "make the Strait accessible and safe after the fighting has stopped".
He said the talks would "assess all viable diplomatic and political measures that we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and resume the movement of vital commodities".
"This will not be easy," he added.
"Following this meeting, we will also convene our military planners to look at how we can marshal our capabilities," Starmer said.
The coalition will consider using military escorts, mine-sweeping operations and other defences against Iranian attacks, according to the Financial Times.
US abandons allies on reopening Hormuz
Any proposed plan of action would be deployed after a ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran. This follows Trump's declaration earlier this week that the war is nearly over, but the US will not help its European allies to unblock the Strait of Hormuz.
Starmer warned on Wednesday: "I don't think it can necessarily be assumed that a de-escalation of the conflict at the same time brings a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz."
Iran closed the crucial waterway – through which 20 percent of the world's oil and gas flowed – in early March in response to the US-Israeli attack on the country.
European countries initially dismissed Trump's demand in mid-March that they send warships to the strait to help reopen it, even after the president threatened that Nato faced a "very bad" future if its member states failed to help the US in opening up the waterway.
Trump said this week he is thinking about withdrawing the US from Nato.
The UK's initiative this week marks an attempt to move closer to Europe, which Starmer on Wednesday said would be a "partnership for a dangerous world we must navigate together", in response to Britain's deteriorating relationship with the US.
Significantly, the European Union has backed the summit this week, after a phone call between Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president.
Von der Leyen said: "Iran’s actions are putting global economic stability at risk. We will work with our partners to ensure freedom of navigation can resume as soon as possible."
Trump has relentlessly mocked and criticised Starmer over the past month for his initial reluctance to allow the US to use British bases to attack Iran, even though Britain ultimately agreed the US could use British bases to target Iranian missile sites and – as of nearly two weeks ago – for attacks intended to open Hormuz.
The Iranian ambassador in London, Seyed Ali Mousavi, said on Times Radio on Wednesday that Tehran was "considering" whether to strike British bases in retaliation.
Meanwhile, reports have suggested that Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, are considering an alternative response to the closing of Hormuz: a return to plans to build new pipelines for oil and gas that would allow them to bypass the strait.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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