The United Kingdom is organizing a conference call with nearly 30 nations to strategize on reopening the strait once hostilities cease.
Former President Trump has argued that the strait could be forcibly opened, yet emphasized that this responsibility should not fall on the United States alone. In a speech to Americans on Wednesday night, he urged oil-reliant nations to muster the courage and take action themselves.
Prior to the onset of the US and Israeli military operations against Iran on February 28, the strait was a vital corridor for global trade, facilitating the passage of 20 percent of the world’s traded oil.
Iran responded defiantly to President Trump’s remarks, in which he asserted that US military efforts had effectively neutralized a significant threat from one of the world’s most powerful nations.
Iranian military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, declared on Thursday that Iran still possesses undisclosed weapons caches and production facilities. He downplayed the impact of US strikes, labeling the affected sites as “insignificant.”
A spokesman for Iran’s military, Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, insisted on Thursday that Tehran maintains hidden stockpiles of arms, munitions and production facilities. He said facilities targeted so far by US strikes are “insignificant”.
Just before Trump began his address — in which he said US “core strategic objectives are nearing completion” — explosions were heard in Dubai as air defences worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage.
Less than a half-hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was also working to intercept incoming missiles. Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.
Attacks continued across Iran on Thursday, with strikes reported in multiple cities.
In Lebanon — home to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who are fighting Israel, which has launched a ground invasion — an Israeli strike killed four people in the south, the Health Ministry said.
More than 1900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 US service members have been killed.
More than 1200 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Nearly three dozen nations will talk about securing the Strait of Hormuz
Iranian attacks on about two dozen commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.
Since March 1, traffic through the strait has dropped 94 per cent over the same period last year, according to the Lloyds List Intelligence shipping data firm. Two ships are confirmed to have paid a fee, the firm said, while others were allowed through based on agreements with their home governments.
In order to bypass Hormuz, Saudi Arabia has been piping more oil to a Red Sea port, and Iraq said Thursday that it had started to truck oil across Syria to the Mediterranean.
The 35 countries speaking Thursday, including all G7 industrialised democracies except the US, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait.
Thursday’s talks were focused on political and diplomatic measures, but British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said military planners from an unspecified number of countries will also plot ways to ensure security once fighting ends, including potential mine-clearing work and “reassurance” for commercial shipping.
No country appears willing to try to open the strait by force while the war is raging. French President Emmanuel Macron, while on a visit to South Korea, called a military operation to secure the waterway “unrealistic.”
But there is a concern that Iran might limit traffic through the waterway even after US and Israeli attacks on it cease.
The idea of an international effort has echoes of the “coalition of the willing,” led by the UK and France, that was assembled to underpin Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in that war. The coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to Washington that Europe is doing more for its own security in the face of frequent criticism from Trump.
Oil prices rise again even as Trump suggests the war could end soon
The conflict is driving up prices for oil and natural gas, roiling stock markets, pushing up the cost of gasoline and threatening to make a range of goods, including food, more expensive.
On Thursday, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in spot trading, up about 50 per cent from February 28 when Israel and the US started the war.
Though the oil and gas that typically transits the strait is primarily sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region joining Thursday’s call about the strait.
The supply of jet fuel has also been interrupted by the conflict, with consequences for travel worldwide.
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