{"id":7123,"date":"2026-04-18T01:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/7123\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T01:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:09:19","slug":"uk-and-france-to-lead-defensive-mission-in-strait-of-hormuz-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/7123\/","title":{"rendered":"UK and France to lead defensive mission in Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer walk in a courtyard, they both wear dark blue suits and ties.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1242\" height=\"699\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/216e5cef919c4a5acdd807e1f24c48ab.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Sir Keir said more details of the mission will be announced next week<\/p>\n<p>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<p>Speaking after a meeting of 51 countries, the prime minister underlined the work would be &#8220;strictly peaceful and defensive&#8221; and would only be put in place once fighting in the region ends.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>On Friday, Iran&#8217;s foreign minister said the route was now &#8220;completely open&#8221; and US President Donald Trump made a similar announcement and criticised Nato for being &#8220;useless when needed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Trump said he received a call from Nato offering help on Friday but, in a post on Truth Social, he wrote that he &#8220;TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The US president has repeatedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cp816jwg411o?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Baol.com%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:criticised Nato, and more specifically the UK;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">criticised Nato, and more specifically the UK<\/a>, during the Iran war.<\/p>\n<p>Sir Keir&#8217;s position has been that the UK would not be &#8220;dragged&#8221; into the conflict and he previously said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c393wxzw4yjo?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Baol.com%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:the UK would not support the blockade.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">the UK would not support the blockade.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the UK prime minister said dozens of countries had offered to &#8220;contribute assets&#8221; to the joint mission with France.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This will be strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance,&#8221; he said alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sir Keir confirmed more details of the mission will be announced next week, following a military planning conference in London.<\/p>\n<p>Tehran promised the Strait of Hormuz 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<p>Trump said his own naval blockade of vessels moving in and out of Iranian ports would remain in force.<\/p>\n<p>While there was a flurry of shipping activity in the Gulf throughout Friday, maritime tracking services showed very few vessels transiting through the strait.<\/p>\n<p>Macron said that the closure of the strait has had &#8220;very severe consequences&#8221; on &#8220;the whole of the planet and the global economy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Recent events are encouraging, even if we have to remain prudent,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Germany &#8220;stands ready to play its part in ensuring freedom of navigation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking after the multilateral meeting, he also said that it would be &#8220;desirable&#8221; for the US to be involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Keir said more details of the mission will be announced next week The UK and France will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7124,"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-7123","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\/7123","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=7123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}