U.K. convenes 40 nations to discuss Strait of Hormuz

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Foreign ministers from more than 40 countries are meeting virtually to discuss President Trump's request for help in ensuring shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The United Kingdom convened an international meeting today to discuss ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. This comes just a day after President Trump again said that the U.S. should not bear the responsibility of opening the strait and called on other countries to do so. The U.S. was not involved in today's meeting. NPR's Fatima Al-Kassab has been monitoring these talks. She joins us from London. Hi.

FATIMA AL-KASSAB, BYLINE: Hi.

SUMMERS: Hi. Start by telling us more about this meeting. What countries were involved?

AL-KASSAB: Yes. So this was a virtual call convened by Britain's foreign secretary from London, and it included counterparts from over 40 countries - representatives from European countries, Canada, but, as you said, not the U.S. Now, Yvette Cooper spoke to her counterparts from a long banquet table in the foreign office in Westminster, and in her opening remarks, she talked about Iran's recklessness, which she said was a direct threat to global prosperity.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

YVETTE COOPER: We have seen Iran hijack an international shipping route to hold the global economy hostage.

AL-KASSAB: Now, this wasn't a conversation about military options. The foreign secretary said these would be discussed next week at another meeting of military planners from these same countries. But the goal of today's meeting was thrashing out economic and diplomatic steps that this coalition can take both now and when the fighting stops to help the flow of shipping in this crucial waterway.

SUMMERS: OK. Interesting. Did anything substantive come out of the meeting?

AL-KASSAB: Yeah. So they discussed a lot of things, including increasing international diplomatic pressure, including through the U.N. on Iran to reopen the strait, exploring economic measures such as sanctions to bear on Iran, they said, if the strait remains closed. And they also discussed things like working with the International Maritime Organization to help what the foreign secretary said were some 20,000 sailors and thousands of ships that are currently stuck in the strait.

But she said it was also about looking ahead to the future, how they can secure the strait when, and only when, the fighting stops. But ultimately, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said this was about showing the strength of what she said was our international determination to reopen the strait. She was keen to stress that 40 countries had taken part and showing - showed that they were coming together and they were united in their condemnation of Iran and in their commitment to solve this through diplomatic means.

SUMMERS: Now, President Trump wants other countries to open the waterway by force. What have you heard from other world leaders about that idea?

AL-KASSAB: Yeah. So we had French president Emmanuel Macron saying that taking the Strait of Hormuz by force, as Trump suggested countries do, is unrealistic. Here he is speaking during a trip to South Korea.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: (Speaking French).

AL-KASSAB: And he said that sending in warships while the fighting continued would only leave cargo ships vulnerable to Iranian attacks. He also said this was not a show. This is about peace and war, and it's a time to be serious. And he hit back at Trump's threats about NATO, about withdrawing from NATO. He accused Trump of casting doubt on the alliance and eroding the very substance of the alliance.

Earlier, I spoke to Mujtaba Rahman. He's from the Eurasia Group, which is a risk analysis firm. And he says the Europeans have not changed their position on this. They're not going to do anything in the hot phase of the war, and they're not going to intervene militarily. But he does think that today's talks in London are significant. He says they're about countries thinking ahead.

MUJTABA RAHMAN: Getting organized around what they are willing to do, both to help Trump in the strait but also to prepare for a context where they may be left alone.

AL-KASSAB: Left alone, that is, to negotiate directly with the Iranians.

SUMMERS: And just to reiterate here, neither Iran nor the United States was involved in today's talks. So is there anything that the participating countries can achieve?

AL-KASSAB: Yeah, so Mujtaba Rahman, the analyst, says that he thinks this is mostly a Trump management exercise - as he puts it - because the president has been demanding that allies do more to reopen the strait. But he also said this was about signaling to Iran that the cost of bad behavior to them is large and that ultimately Iran holds the cards, and any attempt to reopen the flow of shipping would need their agreement.

SUMMERS: NPR's Fatima Al-Kassab in London, thank you.

AL-KASSAB: Thanks so much.

(SOUNDBITE OF FREDDIE GIBBS AND MADLIB'S "GAT DAMN (INSTRUMENTAL)")

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