British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the virtual meeting, chaired by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, “will evaluate all possible diplomatic and political measures that can be taken to restore freedom of navigation, ensure the safety of stranded ships and sailors, and resume the movement of vital goods.”
Iranian attacks on commercial ships, and the threat to launch more of them, led to an almost complete cessation of navigation in the corridor that connects the Gulf to the rest of the world’s oceans, closing an essential route for the flow of global oil and pushing crude prices to a sharp rise.
The United States will not participate in Thursday’s meeting. US President Donald Trump said that securing the Strait of Hormuz “is not America’s mission,” and called on America’s allies to “go get their oil themselves.”
It does not appear that any country is ready to try to open the strait by force in light of the continuing fighting, and Iran’s ability to target ships using anti-ship missiles, drones, attack boats and sea mines, but Starmer said on Wednesday that military planners from an unspecified number of countries will meet soon to discuss how to ensure the security of navigation “after the fighting stops.”
