UK gathers more than 40 countries to press Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

Britain ac­cused Iran on Thurs­day of hold­ing the world’s econ­o­my hostage as diplo­mats from more than 40 coun­tries held talks on ways to press Tehran to re­open the Strait of Hor­muz, a vi­tal oil route that has been choked off by the U.S.-Is­raeli war against Iran.

The U.S. didn’t at­tend the vir­tu­al meet­ing, which came af­ter U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump made clear that he thinks se­cur­ing the wa­ter­way is not Amer­i­ca’s job. Trump has al­so dis­par­aged Amer­i­ca’s Eu­ro­pean al­lies for fail­ing to sup­port the war and re­newed his threats to pull the U.S. out of NA­TO.

U.K. For­eign Sec­re­tary Yvette Coop­er said the talks, which fo­cused on po­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic rather than mil­i­tary means, showed “the strength of our in­ter­na­tion­al de­ter­mi­na­tion” to re­open the strait. The 41 coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed came from all con­ti­nents ex­cept Antarc­ti­ca, a re­flec­tion of the glob­al tremors from a war that has sparked short­ages of fu­el and fer­til­iz­er and high­er prices for food far be­yond the Mid­dle East.

“We have seen Iran hi­jack an in­ter­na­tion­al ship­ping route to hold the glob­al econ­o­my hostage,” Coop­er said at the start of the meet­ing. Coop­er said “un­sus­tain­able” spikes in oil and food prices were “hit­ting house­holds and busi­ness­es in every cor­ner of the world.”

Ship­ping in the strait has slowed to a trick­le

Iran­ian at­tacks on com­mer­cial ships, and the threat of more, have halt­ed near­ly all traf­fic in the wa­ter­way that con­nects the Per­sian Gulf to the rest of the globe’s oceans, shut­ting a crit­i­cal path for the world’s flow of oil and send­ing pe­tro­le­um prices soar­ing.

There have been 23 di­rect at­tacks on com­mer­cial ves­sels in the Gulf since the war be­gan on Feb. 28, and 11 crew mem­bers have been killed, ac­cord­ing to ship­ping da­ta firm Lloyd’s List In­tel­li­gence.

Traf­fic through the strait has slowed to a trick­le, with what re­mains dom­i­nat­ed by sanc­tions-evad­ing tankers car­ry­ing Iran­ian oil, Lloyd’s List In­tel­li­gence said in a brief­ing Thurs­day. It said a murky op­er­a­tion un­der which Iran vets who can pass con­tin­ues to op­er­ate as Tehran main­tains its choke­hold over the key wa­ter­way.

In a tele­vised ad­dress on Wednes­day night, Trump said coun­tries that de­pend on oil flow­ing through the Strait of Hor­muz “must grab it and cher­ish it” — be­cause the U.S. would not.

No coun­try ap­pears will­ing to try and open the strait by force while fight­ing rages and Iran can tar­get ves­sels with an­ti-ship mis­siles, drones, at­tack craft and mines.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron said open­ing the strait by force is “un­re­al­is­tic.”

The re­open­ing of the strait “can on­ly be done in co­or­di­na­tion with Iran,” through ne­go­ti­a­tions that would fol­low a po­ten­tial cease­fire, Macron told re­porters Thurs­day dur­ing a vis­it to South Ko­rea.

France is push­ing for an in­ter­na­tion­al mis­sion in­volv­ing Eu­ro­pean and non-Eu­ro­pean na­tions to es­cort oil and gas tankers through the wa­ter­way af­ter the most in­tense phase of the con­flict is over. The British gov­ern­ment said mil­i­tary plan­ners from an un­spec­i­fied num­ber of coun­tries will meet next week to plot ways to en­sure se­cu­ri­ty once the fight­ing e

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron said open­ing the strait by force is “un­re­al­is­tic.”

The re­open­ing of the strait “can on­ly be done in co­or­di­na­tion with Iran,” through ne­go­ti­a­tions that would fol­low a po­ten­tial cease­fire, Macron told re­porters Thurs­day dur­ing a vis­it to South Ko­rea.

France is push­ing for an in­ter­na­tion­al mis­sion in­volv­ing Eu­ro­pean and non-Eu­ro­pean na­tions to es­cort oil and gas tankers through the wa­ter­way af­ter the most in­tense phase of the con­flict is over. The British gov­ern­ment said mil­i­tary plan­ners from an un­spec­i­fied num­ber of coun­tries will meet next week to plot ways to en­sure se­cu­ri­ty once the fight­ing ends, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial mine-clear­ing work and “re­as­sur­ance” for com­mer­cial ship­ping.

The U.K. hopes Thurs­day’s meet­ing will help iso­late Tehran and weak­en its de­sire to block ship­ping. Coop­er said par­tic­i­pants — se­nior of­fi­cials from coun­tries in­clud­ing France, Ger­many, Italy, Cana­da, Japan and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates — dis­cussed in­creas­ing diplo­mat­ic pres­sure over Iran’s “reck­less” at­tacks and tight­en­ing eco­nom­ic screws to pre­vent Tehran prof­it­ing from con­trol of the strait.

The meet­ing al­so dis­cussed work­ing with the U.N.’s In­ter­na­tion­al Mar­itime Or­ga­ni­za­tion to free 2,000 ships and 20,000 sea­far­ers trapped by the con­flict, she said.

No con­crete mea­sures were an­nounced, how­ev­er.

In a tele­vised ad­dress on Wednes­day night, Trump said coun­tries that de­pend on oil flow­ing through the Strait of Hor­muz “must grab it and cher­ish it” — be­cause the U.S. would not.

No coun­try ap­pears will­ing to try and open the strait by force while fight­ing rages and Iran can tar­get ves­sels with an­ti-ship mis­siles, drones, at­tack craft and mines.

The meet­ing sends a mes­sage to Trump

The in­ter­na­tion­al ef­fort idea has echoes of the in­ter­na­tion­al “coali­tion of the will­ing” that has been as­sem­bled, led by the U.K. and France, to un­der­pin Ukraine’s se­cu­ri­ty af­ter a fu­ture cease­fire in that war. That coali­tion is, in part, an at­tempt to demon­strate to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion that Eu­rope is step­ping up to do more for its own se­cu­ri­ty.

The ur­gency of stronger con­ti­nen­tal de­fens­es has been re­in­forced by Trump’s re­newed sug­ges­tion that the U.S. could leave NA­TO. He said Wednes­day that the mil­i­tary al­liance had “treat­ed us very bad­ly.”

David B. Roberts, read­er in Mid­dle East Se­cu­ri­ty Stud­ies at King’s Col­lege Lon­don, said in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion-build­ing ef­forts over Hor­muz are “def­i­nite­ly linked to the wider Trumpian an­tag­o­nism to­ward NA­TO, that oth­er mem­bers of NA­TO are not pulling their weight.

“With­out a doubt, this is Britain and France, no­tably, try­ing to lead the way, to very vis­i­bly show a cer­tain sort of util­i­ty” to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“There’s al­so the very prag­mat­ic re­al­i­ty that Amer­i­ca is an oil ex­porter,” he added. “The im­me­di­ate pres­sures about the fall­out of the of the en­er­gy block­age in the Gulf, they fall on Eu­rope and of course Asia, far more than Amer­i­ca.”

LON­DON (AP)