Iran oil blockade cannot be solved through paying tolls to Tehran – Cooper
The blockade on oil flowing out of the Middle East should not be solved by paying tolls to Tehran, Yvette Cooper has insisted.
The Foreign Secretary said she would “strongly oppose” any suggestion of paying Iran, or any other country, to ensure oil tankers can enter and exit the Strait of Hormuz safely.
The crucial shipping lane, through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally flows, has been closed by Iran as a response to America and Israel’s strikes.
In retaliation, Donald Trump has begun his own blockade of Iran’s oil ports, aimed at stemming Tehran’s fossil fuel income.
Ms Cooper insisted tolling should not be the solution to the conflict as she met with her German counterpart Johann Wadephul ahead of a gathering of world leaders in Paris on Friday aimed at resolving the blockade.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron will co-host Friday’s gathering in the French metropolis.
Speaking in Berlin at a British-German bilateral meeting on Thursday, the Foreign Secretary described the war in Iran as the “third time in six years we’ve seen international events and economic shock waves around the world”, also listing the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine war.
She added: “But while the ceasefire may be in place, the Strait of Hormuz is crucially important to all of us, and there have been suggestions floating around that part of the resolution to this could be from tolling, either by Iran or by a group of countries putting a price on the Strait of Hormuz.
“Let me be clear how strongly we oppose this suggestion; and how it would continue to undermine regional and global security.
“Because what would stop the Houthis threatening the same, it also undermines our global economic security, because it would put at risk the maritime principles that both of our countries have championed for many generations, the very principles that led to the Law of the Sea, and the transit routes between the high seas not being for any one nation to hold in peril.”
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The problem is Farage’s best mate in the US, Trump. Iran is protecting itself (vile a government that it is). And trump, as ever, has seen a grift in taking tolls for himself! Will she be happy paying the US? Trump has said he will increase UK tariffs anyway, don’t forget Farage will be egging trump on to attack the UK..
People who war gamed this situation had the straits shut as a first response almost every time but that dribbling idiot of a president went ahead anyway.