{"id":469364,"date":"2026-05-05T10:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469364\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T10:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:42:13","slug":"europe-has-gotten-the-message-from-trump-on-iran-nato-chief-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469364\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe has \u2018gotten the message\u2019 from Trump on Iran, Nato chief says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

European governments have \u201cgotten the message\u201d from US president Donald Trump<\/a> and are prepared to play a greater role in clearing the Strait of Hormuz of mines in the \u201cnext phase\u201d of the Iran<\/a> war, Nato<\/a> chief Mark Rutte<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

It was obvious Washington had been disappointed in Europe\u2019s initial response to the US and Israel\u2019s war<\/a> in Iran, the secretary general of the western military alliance said. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Europe] heard the message loud and clear,\u201d Rutte told reporters on his way in to a summit of European leaders in Yerevan, Armenia. <\/p>\n

Trump has lashed out at European allies for not aiding his military campaign in Iran, which has seen the regime in Tehran successfully block off the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route that brings oil and gas from the Gulf to the rest of the world. <\/p>\n

Trump on Monday said the US will begin guiding stranded ships through the chokepoint. Commercial tankers have refrained from sailing through the strait, for fear of being targeted by missiles and drones fired from Iran or hitting mines laid in the waterway. <\/p>\n

Speaking on Monday, Rutte said European countries had pre-positioned \u201cmine hunters [and] minesweepers\u201d near the region that could help clear the Strait of Hormuz during \u201cthe next phase\u201d of the conflict. <\/p>\n

It is unclear if any European governments will agree to deploy naval vessels to help Trump\u2019s latest bid to unblock the Strait of Hormuz. Previously a coalition of European states said it would help restore freedom of navigation to the shipping lane in the event of a lasting truce. <\/p>\n

Iran has warned the US against attempting to shepherd ships through the strait. <\/p>\n

Rutte was speaking at a meeting of the European Political Community, a forum that brings together more than 40 leaders from the EU and the wider region. <\/p>\n

In a speech to his fellow European leaders at the Yerevan summit, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine was continuing \u201cas hard as before\u201d. <\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president said the coming months could prove to be an important turning point in the full-scale war that Russia launched in February 2022. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis summer will be a moment when [Vladimir] Putin decides what to do next, expand the war or move to diplomacy, and we must push him toward diplomacy,\u201d Zelenskiy said. <\/p>\n

The war in Iran has pulled the focus of the White House away from Ukraine, causing start-stop negotiations to end the conflict to lose momentum. <\/p>\n

Zelenskiy said European powers had to be involved in any peace negotiations, which to date have been limited to representatives of Washington, Kyiv and Moscow. \u201cWe need to find a workable diplomatic format and Europe must be at the table in any talks,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen separately said the Continent needed to become more independent, both in producing a greater share of its own energy and its ability to defend itself militarily. <\/p>\n

That meant increasing the amount of renewable and nuclear energy produced in Europe, the head of the EU\u2019s executive arm said. \u201cWe have to step up our military capabilities to be able to defend and protect ourselves,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

The summit in Yerevan comes a number of days after the US said it would pull 5,000 troops from overseas bases in Germany, fuelling European countries\u2019 concerns about Trump\u2019s shaky commitment to the transatlantic alliance. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been talk about US withdrawal of troops from Europe for a long time, but of course the timing of this announcement comes as a surprise,\u201d said Kaja Kallas, the EU\u2019s foreign affairs envoy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe American troops are not in Europe only for protecting the European interests but also the American interest,\u201d Kallas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European governments have \u201cgotten the message\u201d from US president Donald Trump and are prepared to play a greater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,6,18929,45036,11,12,15,16,5,4897,7,8,2264,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-469364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-ukraine-crisis","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116521556253490280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}