{"id":3551,"date":"2026-04-10T14:01:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T14:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/3551\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T14:01:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T14:01:32","slug":"merz-rejects-immediate-role-in-securing-strait-of-hormuz-amid-fragile-ceasefire-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/3551\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz rejects immediate role in securing Strait of Hormuz amid fragile ceasefire \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We are prepared to help after a peace agreement is reached,&#8221; Merz said. &#8220;President Trump knows that there are two prerequisites for Germany to do this. The first prerequisite is that we need an international mandate, preferably from the U.N. Security Council. Second, we need a resolution from the German Bundestag,&#8221; he added in reference to Germany&#8217;s rules regarding foreign military operations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That\u2019s why you shouldn\u2019t expect any decisions from us within the next few days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trump announced Tuesday evening that the U.S. had reached <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/04\/07\/donald-trump-iran-war-ceasefire-00863103\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran<\/a> subject to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, a global energy chokepoint.<\/p>\n<p>The German leader called the ceasefire a &#8220;ray of hope,&#8221; but warned that &#8220;the past 24 hours alone have shown just how fragile the ceasefire in the region is, how uncertain the situation remains in the Strait of Hormuz, and how far apart the positions of the parties involved still are. The negotiations that now lie ahead will be very challenging.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Merz said he would speak to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Thursday evening and underscored that Germany would engage in diplomacy to end the war.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do not want this war \u2014 which has become a transatlantic stress test \u2014 to further strain relations between the United States and its European NATO partners,&#8221; Merz said. &#8220;While I fully understand the calls for a clear stance, let me also say this here and now: We do not want \u2014 I do not want \u2014 NATO to split. NATO is a guarantor of our security, including and especially in Europe. We must continue to keep a cool head here.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;We are prepared to help after a peace agreement is reached,&#8221; Merz said. &#8220;President Trump knows that there&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,1646,393,5,253,3551,619,3625,626,481,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-3551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-friedrich-merz","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-mark-rutte","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-negotiations","16":"tag-security","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}