France and the UK will meet this week to work on restoring traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively shut down by US-Israel war with Iran. The announcement comes as US President Donald Trump ordered a blockade on ships going in or out of Iranian ports. French President Emmanuel Macron said the mission would be "separate from the warring parties".
"In the coming days, together with the United Kingdom, we will organise a conference with those countries prepared to contribute alongside us to a peaceful multinational mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait," Macron said Monday, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for oil and gas from the region.
US-Israeli strikes on Iran more than six weeks ago brought traffic through the strait to a standstill.
After ceasefire talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan ended in failure this weekend, US President Donald Trump ordered the US navy to carry out a blockade of traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports starting Monday afternoon.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that "Other Countries will be involved with this Blockade", without specifying which ones.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that Britain will not join.
Defensive mission
In a social media post, Starmer said that the UK "has convened more than 40 nations who share our aim to restore freedom of navigation, referring to a meeting held on 2 April. The United States was not involved in those talks.
"The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz is deeply damaging. Getting global shipping moving is vital to ease cost of living pressures," Starmer said.
The maritime passages with a chokehold on the global economy
Macron said the UK-French initiative would not involve the United States or Iran.
"This strictly defensive mission, separate from the warring parties to the conflict, is intended to be deployed as soon as circumstances permit," he said.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN maritime agency said Monday no country had a legal right to block the Strait of Hormuz.
"In accordance to international law, no countries have the right to prohibit the right of innocent passage or the freedom of navigation through international straits that are used for international transit," General Arsenio Dominguez told a news conference.
Dangerous precedent
Iranian authorities have been allowing a trickle of vetted vessels to pass the strait through a route close to their coast and in some cases have reportedly levied a payment to let vessels through.
"This principle of introducing a toll on an international strait for international navigation is against the international law of the sea and the customary law," Dominguez said.
"It will create a very dangerous precedent."
The US vow to blockade Iranian ports meanwhile "doesn't make it any easier", he added.
'If the Strait of Hormuz were to remain closed, we would face a major crisis'
"De-escalation is what is going to start helping us to address the crisis and to bring shipping back to the way that we used to operate."
He predicted that the extra impact of a US blockade on shipping would be negligible, however.
"With the very few number of ships that have managed to transit, an additional blockade is not going to exacerbate the situation in a level that it could be perceived."
(with newswires)
