The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office convened a virtual meeting today on the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, chaired by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, which it said was attended by the foreign ministers of more than 40 countries as well as “key international organizations,” including the International Maritime Organization and the European Union. The United States, of course, was not among the 40, President Trump having proclaimed that he didn’t care if the Strait was opened or not, and that it was up to the Europeans and others to solve the problem. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that the foreign ministers would discuss ways to “make the Strait accessible and safe after the fighting has stopped.”
The statement issued by Cooper afterwards issued a call on Iran to re-open the Strait, but it said nothing about stopping the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran – which of course is the reason the Strait is closed in the first place! Instead, it blamed Iran for the “disruption to shipping through the Strait” which “has immediate and far-reaching consequences for global supplies, prices and economic stability, with severe humanitarian effects for communities the world over.”
“Iran is trying to hold the global economy hostage in the Strait of Hormuz,” the statement charges sanctimoniously. “They must not prevail. To that effect, partners today called for the immediate and unconditional reopening of the Strait and respect for the fundamental principles of freedom of navigation and the law of the sea.”
The participants discussed a number of areas for possible future action, including the following:
Increase international diplomatic pressure, including through the UN, to send clear and co-ordinated messages to Iran to permit unimpeded transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz and to comprehensively reject the imposition of tolls on vessels which seek to pass through.
