Germany plans to move two naval vessels from Djibouti to the eastern Mediterranean in the coming days after concluding that conditions are not yet in place for a possible military mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz given the ongoing Iran war, a Defence Ministry spokesman has said.
The ships, the minehunter Fulda and the supply vessel Mosel, are currently docked in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden, the spokesman said on Thursday.
Germany sent the vessels to the region to stand by for a possible mine-clearing operation in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route between The Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that is vital to the global energy trade.
Shipping traffic in the strait has been severely disrupted since the United States and Israel launched the war against Iran at the end of February.
The Defence Ministry in Berlin made clear in a statement that it did not expect the volatile political situation to stabilize quickly enough in the near term to allow a mission to secure the route. The ships are to remain on standby in the Mediterranean until a mission start becomes foreseeable, it said.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius had already announced in early July that he might bring the ships home in the coming months, given the prolonged uncertainty.
The conditions for a deployment in the Strait of Hormuz include an agreement on a permanent end to hostilities, the consent of the directly bordering states Iran and Oman, and a legal basis – including approval by German parliament.