{"id":900882,"date":"2026-04-17T15:15:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/900882\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:15:40","slug":"france-and-uk-leaders-urge-permanent-open-navigation-in-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/900882\/","title":{"rendered":"France and UK leaders urge permanent open navigation in Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS (AP) \u2014 The leaders of France and the U.K. on Friday welcomed the announcement by Iran and the U.S. that the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> is open, but said freedom of navigation must be permanently restored to the key oil route choked by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would keep planning an international mission to restore maritime security, which Starmer said will be deployed \u201cas soon as conditions allow.\u201d They said military planners will meet in London next week.<\/p>\n

Speaking after a gathering of some 50 countries, Macron said \u201cwe all demand the full, immediate and unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz by all parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer said the announcement by Iran and the U.S. that the waterway is open must become \u201cboth lasting and a workable proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Paris meeting is part of attempts by sidelined nations to ease the impact of a conflict they didn\u2019t start and haven\u2019t joined, but that has sent the global economy reeling<\/a>. Petroleum prices soared after the war started on Feb. 28, when Iran effectively shut the narrow strait through which a fifth of the world\u2019s oil usually passes.<\/p>\n

As representatives from about 50 nations and international organizations, including over 30 heads of state and government, joined the meeting in Paris, U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran\u2019s foreign minister declared the strait open to commercial vessels. Oil prices plunged after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that passage for commercial vessels would remain \u201ccompletely open\u201d for the duration of a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Trump in an all-caps social media post said that the U.S. Navy\u2019s blockade<\/a> of Iranian ships and ports would remain in force \u201cUNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. is not part of the planning for what has been branded the Strait of Hormuz Maritime Freedom of Navigation Initiative. In a post on X ahead of Friday\u2019s conference, Macron said the mission to provide security for shipping through the strait would be \u201cstrictly defensive\u201d and limited to non-belligerent countries.<\/p>\n

Starmer, facing political troubles at home<\/a>, was greeted by Macron in the courtyard of the Elysee presidential palace on Friday afternoon. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni also attended in person. Others, including the prime ministers of Australia and Canada and the South Korean and Ukrainian presidents, joined by video.<\/p>\n

Military planning underway<\/p>\n

In an echo of the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d<\/a> assembled to provide security for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in that war, Starmer said that along with France, the U.K. will lead a multinational mission to protect freedom of navigation as soon as conditions allow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said more than a dozen countries had agreed to contribute assets, far fewer than in the wider Hormuz coalition.<\/p>\n

Merz said Germany could contribute mine clearance and maritime intelligence capabilities to such a mission, but would need parliamentary support and a \u2033secure legal basis\u2033 such as a U.N. Security Council resolution.<\/p>\n

He said Germany, \u2033if possible, would also like to see the United States of America participate; we believe this would be desirable.\u2033<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a departure from Macron, who has said the mission will involve countries not involved in the conflict.<\/p>\n

Meloni said she had expressed Italy\u2019s \u201cwillingness to make its naval units available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron\u2019s office said participants will contribute \u201ceach according to its capabilities,\u201d stressing options to ensure safe passage through the strait will depend on the security situation after a lasting ceasefire. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat matters is that ship operators have all the means at their disposal to be sure their vessels will not be hit if they pass through the strait. That may require intelligence, mine-clearing capabilities, military escorts, communication procedures with coastal states etc.,\u201d an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the French presidency\u2019s customary practices.<\/p>\n

Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow in sea power at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said mine-clearing and creating a warning system for maritime threats were more likely roles for the coalition than warships escorting commercial tankers through the strait.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need huge numbers of vessels for that sort of thing, which nobody has,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mine-clearing a key role<\/p>\n

Iran expert Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said mine-clearing is an area where European countries and their partners could play a role.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey would be a better party to do this than the United States, because once you have U.S. military doing this and lingering on Iranian shores, it creates a potential arena for Iran and the U.S. to have miscalculations and get back into a sort of military tension,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Britain has discussed using mine-hunting drones, deployed from the ship RFA Lyme Bay, for a Hormuz mission.<\/p>\n

The war has highlighted the shrunken state of the Royal Navy, which has deployed just one major warship, the destroyer HMS Dragon, to the eastern Mediterranean. France, which has the EU\u2019s most powerful military, has sent its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier<\/a> to the region, alongside a helicopter carrier and several frigates.<\/p>\n

The operation is partly a response to Trump, who has berated allies for failing to join the war and said reopening the strait is not America\u2019s job<\/a>. The president has called allies \u201ccowards,\u201d said NATO \u201cwasn\u2019t there when we needed them\u201d and telling Britain: \u201cYou don\u2019t even have a navy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI imagine there\u2019ll be some desire on the part of many European states, and potentially Canada, to demonstrate the ability to provide security in a way that\u2019s distinct from, if not completely separate from, the U.S. and which also demonstrates a capacity for independent action,\u201d Kaushal said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many states actually have spare capacity to offer to this is a pretty open question.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Lawless reported from London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 The leaders of France and the U.K. on Friday welcomed the announcement by Iran and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[19751,51,32,253700,34,26934,2000,299,36,16831,1945,4179,2440,8614,774,83163,125002,807,839,8617,250054,1411,285,15,7660,263],"class_list":["post-900882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-abbas-araghchi","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-ellie-geranmayeh","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-energy-industry","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-france-government","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-general-news","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-international-agreements","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-italy-government","tag-keir-starmer","tag-middle-east","tag-military-and-defense","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-paris","tag-politics","tag-united-kingdom","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116420708305627829","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}