Cooper condemns reckless Iran as she leads diplomatic push to reopen Strait of Hormuz
Foreign Secretary hosts emergency meeting with 40 other countries
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has chaired an emergency diplomatic sumit urging collective action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
On a video call with representatives from more than 40 countries Cooper condemned Tehran’s “Iranian recklessness” for “hitting global economic security”.
She warned that Iran’s blockade was not only driving up mortgage rates, petrol prices and the cost of living, but posed a fundamental threat to global economic stability.
The vital Strait oil shipping lane has effectively been shut down by Iran in retaliation for the US-Israeli military campaign against it.
The diplomatic push, which includes countries such as France, Germany and some Gulf nations, comes after US President Donald Trump distanced Washington from the crisis, telling countries that rely on the strait they should “build up some delayed courage” and “just grab it”.
He suggested the waterway would “just open up naturally” once the conflict with Iran ended — and made clear the US would not lead any reopening effort.
Speaking during the summit, Cooper outlined a three-pronged strategy: mobilising diplomatic and economic pressure on Tehran, providing reassurance to industry, insurers and energy markets, and guaranteeing the safety of vessels already caught in the crisis.
“There are some 20,000 trapped seafarers on some 2,000 trapped ships,” she said, following what she described as “over 25 attacks on vessels in the strait”.
She said the plan would involve “collective mobilisation of our full range of diplomatic and economic tools and pressures” alongside “effective coordination that we need across the world to enable a safe and sustained opening of the strait.”
A further meeting of military planners is scheduled for next week to consider how to “marshal our collective defensive military capabilities”, including the clearing of mines that may have been laid by Tehran to block the sea passage.
Labour peer and former EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton — who served as special adviser for nuclear talks with Iran — welcomed Cooper’s summit as “positive”, but cautioned that a brief meeting was only the beginning.
Lady Ashton said any diplomatic effort would hinge on Europe’s “capacity to convene and actually have the dialogue with different countries”, describing Europe as an “important power block” in any future negotiations.
“A small, short conversation with a group of countries doesn’t take you to serious conclusions, but it does give you a sense of direction of travel,” she told the BBC’s The World At One.
Asked whether European nations could negotiate safe passage for tankers while US bombing of Iran continued, Lady Ashton was blunt: “I think it’s very difficult to imagine that Iran is going to want to differentiate in that particular granulated way between individual nations.”
She warned that Tehran would instead use any talks as leverage, telling European governments: “If you’re serious about wanting this, you’ve got to pressurise the US, you’ve got to pressurise Israel.”
Speaking during a visit in the north-east Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch urged Trump not to abandon “a mess that he’s made” in the Middle East.
Asked whether Britain’s decision to stay out of the war had put the special relationship at risk, the Tory leader told broadcasters: “The special relationship is between the UK and the US, not between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer or whoever happens to be holding those offices. We need to preserve it. We need the US. They are a close military ally. They help a lot with British security; we need to do what is in the British national interest.
“But if I were speaking to him, I’d be saying, ‘if you break it, you own it’. That’s what Colin Powell, a former Secretary of State in the US, had said. ‘If you break it, you own it.’
“He started this war. We said that if he needed support against Iran, he could use our air bases. That’s one of the things that Britain has done.
“He should not be abandoning a mess that he’s made, if he thinks that it is a mess.”
Badenoch insisted she wanted to see the “conflict brought to an end”, but questioned whether the Government had a clear strategy.
“It doesn’t feel like there is a coordinated plan,” she said. “What we want to see is our Government showing that it is thinking ahead. It is prepared. The best thing it can do right now for our energy insecurity is to increase supply by drilling our own oil and gas in the North Sea.”
In another sign of the changing opinions of Trump within British politics, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told a press conference he is not “angry” with the US president for entering the war, but added it is “difficult listening to the press conferences sometimes” to work out what Mr Trump’s motivation was.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey meanwhile urged Keir Starmer to “step up” with plans to reopen the oil and gas shipping route throttled by Iran, adding: “The Prime Minister needs to show an alternative.”
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