DONALD Trump has urged the UK and other nations to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to help secure the key shipping route out of the Middle East.
The US president said he hoped China, France, Japan and South Korea would also send ships to the passage, where a number of tankers are said to have been attacked since the US and Israel mounted their war against Iran a fortnight ago.
Responding to Trump’s comments, the UK Ministry of Defence said it was discussing “a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region” with allies.
Tehran has said it will keep blocking the strait — the world’s busiest oil shipping channel through which about 20 per cent of world oil supplies usually pass.
Its effective closure, as well as strikes on shipping and energy infrastructure since the war started, has led to a huge rise in global oil prices.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that “many countries” would be sending warships in conjunction with the US to help keep the strait “open and safe”.
He claimed “100 per cent of Iran’s military capability” had already been destroyed, but that Tehran could still “send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway”.
“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, which are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.”
He added: “In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”
Trump repeated his appeal in a post later on Saturday extending it to all “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait” and said the US would provide “a lot” of support to those who participated.
The president has separately threatened to target Iran’s vital oil infrastructure on Kharg Island if its leadership were to “interfere” with ships seeking to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
He said the US had “obliterated” military targets on the small island off Iran’s coast on Friday, calling it “one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East”.
Iran’s military said oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms working with the US would “immediately be destroyed” should the island’s oil infrastructure be attacked.
Tehran has been stepping up such attacks on energy targets in the Gulf, which have become a key element of its response to US and Israeli strikes. It warned on Thursday that any tanker bound for the US, Israel or its partners was a legitimate target.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said in its latest update on 12 March that 16 ships were reported to have been attacked in and around the strait since the war began on 28 February.
Currently, not even the US Navy is escorting tankers through the narrow shipping lane.
—BBC
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