The UK and France will hold a fresh summit of military planners to discuss how the Strait of Hormuz can be kept open, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron continue a diplomatic push to restore free transit through the vital shipping route.
Planners from more than 30 countries will participate in the talks in a two-day conference in north London, which will “advance military plans to reopen the Strait, as soon as conditions permit, following a sustainable ceasefire agreement,” the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said in a statement.
Starmer and Macron have been leading efforts to coordinate a plan to keep the Strait open once the Iran war ends, though they’ve resisted US President Donald Trump’s request for allied nations to re-open the key shipping channel by force.
Starmer and Macron hosted a summit on the issue in Paris last week, stressing the plan would be “strictly defensive in nature.”
“The task, today and tomorrow, is to translate the diplomatic consensus into a joint plan to safeguard freedom of navigation in the Strait and support a lasting ceasefire,” UK Defence Secretary John Healey said in the statement.
“I am confident that, over the next two days, real progress can be made.”
The Strait of Hormuz — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas exports flowed before the war — remains closed to most commercial traffic for now, as it has been since just after the start of the war on Feb. 28.
Iran said last week it would reopen the waterway, only to reverse the decision hours later as a US blockade on its own ships persisted.
The US then intercepted and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel on Sunday.
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