PARIS (AP) – The leaders of France and Great Britain on Friday welcomed the announcement by Iran and the United States that Strait of Hormuz is open, but said freedom of navigation must be permanently restored to the main oil route choked by The US-Israel war against Iran.
President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would continue to plan an international mission to restore maritime security, which Starmer said would be deployed “as soon as conditions permit”. They said military planners will meet in London next week.
Speaking after a gathering of around 50 countries and international organisations, Macron said “we all demand the full, immediate and unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz by all parties”.
As the meeting was taking place, US President Donald Trump and Iran’s foreign minister declared the strait open to merchant ships. Oil prices fell after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that the passage for merchant ships would remain “fully open” for the duration of a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon.
Trump in a full post on social networks said that US Navy Blockade of Iranian ships and ports will remain in effect “UNTIL OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETED.”
Starmer cautiously welcomed the announcement, but said it needed to become “a sustainable and workable proposition”.
The Paris meeting is part of the sidelined countries’ efforts to ease the impact of a conflict they did not start and did not join, but which has sent recovery of the global economy. Oil prices rose after the war began on February 28, when Iran effectively closed the narrow strait through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes.
The United States is not part of the planning for what has been called the Strait of Hormuz Freedom of the Seas Initiative, which Macron said would be “a neutral mission, completely separate from the belligerents, to escort and secure merchant ships transiting the Gulf.”
Starmer, opposite political problems at homewas greeted by Macron in the courtyard of the Elysee presidential palace on Friday afternoon. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also participated in person. Others, including the prime ministers of Australia and Canada, the presidents of South Korea and Ukraine, and representatives of China and India, joined by video.
Military planning is underway
In an echo of “coalition of the willing” assembled to provide security for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in that war, Starmer said that, along with France, the UK would lead a multinational mission to protect freedom of navigation as soon as conditions permitted.
“This will be strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to secure commercial shipping and support mine clearance,” he said.
He said more than a dozen countries had agreed to contribute assets, far fewer than in the broader Hormuz coalition.
Britain has discussed the use of mine-hunting drones deployed by the RFA Lyme Bay.
The war has highlighted the shrinking state of the Royal Navy, which has deployed only one large warship, the destroyer HMS Dragon, in the eastern Mediterranean. France, which has the EU’s most powerful military, has sent its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the region, along with a helicopter carrier and several frigates.
Meloni said she had expressed Italy’s “willingness to make its naval units available”, while Merz said Germany could contribute mine-clearing and maritime intelligence capabilities to such a mission, but would need parliamentary support and a “secure legal basis” such as a UN Security Council resolution.
He said that Germany, “if possible, would also like to see the United States of America participate; we believe that would be desirable.”
This is a departure from Macron, who has said the mission will include countries not involved in the conflict.
Macron’s office said roles for coalition members could include “intelligence, demining capabilities, military escort (and) communication procedures with coastal states.”
Sidharth Kaushal, a naval power researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, said mine clearance and setting up a maritime threat warning system were more likely roles for the coalition than warships escorting merchant tankers through the strait.
“You need a large number of ships for that kind of thing, which nobody has,” he said.
Trump dismisses NATO as a ‘paper tiger’
Iran expert Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said demining is an area where European countries and their partners can play a role.
“They would be a better party to do that than the United States, because once you have the U.S. military doing that and continuing off the Iranian coast, it creates a potential arena for Iran and the U.S. to miscalculate and go back to some kind of military tension,” she said.
The operation is partly a response to Trump, who has chided allies for failing to join the fight. The president has called allies “cowards”, said NATO “wasn’t there when we needed them” and told Britain: “You don’t even have a navy”.
Kaushal said European countries are likely to try “to demonstrate the ability to provide security in a way that is distinct, if not completely separate from the US and which also demonstrates a capacity for independent action”.
“How many states actually have the spare capacity to provide for that is a pretty open question.”
Trump appeared dismissive of European offers of help, although he referred to NATO rather than the Franco-British-led coalition.
“Now that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is over, I got a call from NATO asking if we needed help. I told them to stay away unless they NEED TO LOAD THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL,” he posted on social media.
“They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!”
By SYLVIE CORBET and JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
Lawless reports from London. Associated Press writer John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.
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