{"id":7059,"date":"2026-04-17T18:32:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/7059\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T18:32:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:32:39","slug":"uk-and-france-to-lead-defensive-mission-in-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/7059\/","title":{"rendered":"UK and France to lead defensive mission in Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK and France will lead a multinational mission to protect commercial shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz, Sir Keir Starmer has said.<\/p>\n

Speaking after a meeting of 49 countries, the prime minister underlined the work would be “strictly peaceful and defensive” and would only be put in place once fighting in the region ends.<\/p>\n

Iran effectively blocked the waterway since the US and Israel attacked the country in late February, driving up global energy and fuel prices.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Iran’s foreign minister said the route was now “completely open” and US President Donald Trump confirmed the news and criticised Nato for being “useless when needed”.<\/p>\n

Tehran promised the strait will be completely open to commercial vessels until the middle of next week, when a temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran will end.<\/p>\n

Trump said his own naval blockade of vessels moving in and out of Iranian ports would remain in force.<\/p>\n

Declaring that the “Hormuz Strait situation is over”, he added that he had received a call from Nato offering help.<\/p>\n

“I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL. They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!”<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly criticised Nato, and more specifically the UK<\/a>, during the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir’s position has been that the UK would not be “dragged” into the conflict and he previously said the UK would not support the blockade.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the UK prime minister said dozens of countries had offered to “contribute assets” to the joint mission with France.<\/p>\n

“This will be strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance,” he said alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n

“We invite all nations with an interest in the free flow of global trade to join us. Some have already indicated their readiness to contribute.”<\/p>\n

Sir Keir confirmed more details of the mission will be announced next week, following a military planning conference in London.<\/p>\n

Macron added that the closure of the strait has had “very severe consequences” on “the whole of the planet and the global economy”.<\/p>\n

“Recent events are encouraging, even if we have to remain prudent,” he said.<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has not said if his country will assist the UK-France mission, said it would be “desirable” for the US to be involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK and France will lead a multinational mission to protect commercial shipping routes in the Strait of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5793,5,50,3053,5794,3206,5843,340,955,5844],"class_list":{"0":"post-7059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-commercial-shipping","9":"tag-france","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-keir-starmer","12":"tag-multinational-mission","13":"tag-president-donald-trump","14":"tag-sir-keir","15":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-uk-prime-minister"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}