disparaged the US\u2019s European allies<\/a> for failing to support the war and renewed his threats to pull the US out of NATO.<\/p>\nThe countries participating in Thursday\u2019s summit, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates, have signed a statement demanding that Iran stop its attempts to block the strait and pledging to \u201ccontribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage\u201d through the waterway.<\/p>\n
The meeting is considered a first step, to be followed by \u201cworking-level meetings\u201d of officials to hammer out details.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the plus side, this is a broad coalition. It\u2019s not just Western, it\u2019s not just NATO. It involves countries [like] the UK, France, the Scandinavian countries, Baltic countries, but it also involves Bahrain, it involves the UAE, it involves Panama, it involves Nigeria,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Rory Challands, reporting from London.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the heart of it, though, there is a capabilities question. What can they do? How much naval capacity can any of these countries offer?\u201d<\/p>\n
Not by force<\/p>\n
No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while fighting rages and Iran can target vessels with anti-ship missiles, drones, attack craft and mines.<\/p>\n
According to Challands, the British prime minister has been \u201cvery explicit\u201d about non-military solutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeir Starmer has no interest in getting involved in this war. Most of the countries gathered [have] no interest in getting involved in the war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Starmer said on Wednesday that military planners from an unspecified number of countries will meet soon to work on how to ensure security for shipping \u201cafter the fighting has stopped\u201d.<\/p>\n
Starmer said resuming shipping \u201cwill not be easy,\u201d and will require \u201ca united front of military strength and diplomatic activity\u201d alongside partnership with the maritime industry.<\/p>\n
The coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to the Trump administration that Europe is stepping up to do more for its own security, especially as the US president threatens to leave NATO.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that it is not feasible to launch a military operation to force open the strait.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was never the option we have supported because it is unrealistic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would take forever,\u201d Macron said, and expose those crossing the strait to \u201ccoastal threats\u201d, particularly from Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has \u201csignificant resources as well as ballistic missiles\u201d.<\/p>\n
Macron has suggested the best way to ensure the strait\u2019s opening is by talking directly to Iran.<\/p>\n
There have been 23 direct attacks on commercial vessels in the Gulf since joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran ignited the war on February 28, and 11 crew members have been killed, according to Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence, a shipping data firm.<\/p>\n
Iran has said that \u201cnon-hostile\u201d ships may\u00a0transit the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> and the waterway is only closed to vessels of enemy countries and their allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom is gathering foreign ministers from 40 countries to discuss options to reopen the Strait of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2582,2583,1659,2584,252,2151,24,1907,42,18,189,2066,5,6,1450],"class_list":{"0":"post-4423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-antarctica","10":"tag-asia","11":"tag-asia-pacific","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-greenland","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-latin-america","16":"tag-middle-east","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-oil-and-gas","19":"tag-shipping","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116335423172029516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}