BRITAIN has offered to host an international security summit to draw up a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed by Iran since the start of the Middle East conflict, plunging global energy markets into turmoil.
More than 30 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Canada and Australia, have signed a joint statement agreeing to work on "appropriate efforts" to safeguard the vital waterway, through which about a fifth of the world's oil supplies normally pass.
Britain and France are expected to chair talks among the group later this week, with a larger summit to follow in London or at navy headquarters in Portsmouth, media reports said.
A defence official said military chiefs from the signatory nations would meet shortly, with others potentially invited to join.
"I anticipate that at some point in the near future there'll be some kind of Strait of Hormuz security conference," the official said, adding that the aim was to "build this coalition and develop momentum so that as soon as the conditions are right, we're able to open a safe route through the strait and provide that reassurance to merchant shipping."
The Ministry of Defence has already sent military planners to US Central Command to assess options for getting tankers through the strait, including the possible deployment of minesweeping drones to the Gulf.
Western countries had previously declined Donald Trump's requests to send naval vessels while the conflict remained at such a dangerous level.
Prime minister Keir Starmer told the Commons liaison committee on Monday (23) that there would not necessarily be a "quick and early end" to the conflict, despite Trump having postponed strikes on Iranian power plants.
The UK and its allies are pressing for swift de-escalation as the economic damage from the closed waterway mounts. Oil prices and government borrowing costs have risen sharply, with knock-on effects on inflation.
Matt Western, the Labour MP who chairs the joint committee on national security strategy, said gas prices had "almost doubled" and the price of oil had "jumped" since the strait ground to a near standstill.
He said Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "catastrophic military folly is crippling the global economy and hurting the pockets of British consumers". He also accused Trump of committing a "massive strategic error which is damaging its allies and benefiting its adversaries" as China and Russia profit from the crisis.
Western warned that Trump's presidency was on course to be one of the "most foolhardy and costly" for the global economy.
