UK Leads Diplomatic Effort to Restore Shipping in Strait of Hormuz

The UK is leading a diplomatic initiative to restore access to the Strait of Hormuz, currently being throttled by Iran in response to the U.S.–Israeli military action against it.

A meeting between NATO allies, including France and Germany, and some Persian Gulf States was held on April 2, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for countries that rely on the maritime route to “build up some delayed courage” and “just take it.”

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper chaired the video meeting with representatives from more than 40 countries, telling delegates that their focus must be on “diplomatic and international planning measures, including collective mobilization of [the countries’] full range of diplomatic and economic tools and pressures.”

She said this would include “reassurance work” with industry, insurers, and energy markets, as well as action to “guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and effective coordination … across the world to enable a safe and sustained opening of the strait.”

The United States did not attend the meeting.

Trump has repeatedly criticized America’s European allies for declining to support the war and suggested on April 1 that he is considering pulling the United States out of NATO, which he said had treated the United States “very badly.”

Cooper told the meeting that Iran has carried out more than 25 attacks on vessels in the strait, noting that there are currently about 20,000 seafarers on some 2,000 trapped ships.

‘Iranian Recklessness’

Referring to the economic shockwaves caused by the crisis, she said, “Iranian recklessness towards countries who were never involved in this conflict … is not just hitting mortgage rates and petrol prices and the cost of living here in the UK and in many different countries across the world, it is hitting our global economic security.”

The April 2 meeting will be followed by additional meetings to hammer out the details.

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

A total of 35 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates, signed a March 19 statement demanding that Iran stop its attempts to block the strait and pledging to “contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage” through the waterway.

UK Seeks Closer EU Ties

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said in an April 1 speech that the UK, which left the European Union in 2020, would seek closer ties with Europe, partly because of the ongoing war. As a lawmaker in the Labour Party, the prime minister was a prominent supporter of the campaign to keep the UK in the EU before the 2016 Brexit vote.

Starmer has been repeatedly criticized by Trump for declining to send UK troops or allow the use of UK bases to attack Iran.

“This is not our war,” the prime minister said on April 1. “We will not be drawn into the conflict. That is not in our national interest.

“And the most effective way we can support the cost of living in Britain is to push for deescalation in the Middle East and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which is such a vital route for energy. To that end, we are exploring each and every diplomatic avenue that is available to us.”

The Associated Press and the PA Media contributed to this report.