Trump upset as key allies shun call for Hormuz warship escorts

Iran won't submit to 'lawless aggression' Saudi source rubbishes NYT report of encouraging prolonged war More st

DUBAI/ GENEVA/ TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON:

President Donald Trump on Monday demanded US allies join an effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz, as European powers ruled out a NATO mission to reopen the vital waterway shut by Iran during the Middle East war.

Trump criticised the lukewarm response to his call for world powers to send warships to escort tankers through the strait, which normally carries a fifth of global crude oil, demanding a more enthusiastic response.

Trump said he thought Britain and France would get involved—but only reluctantly.

"We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us and get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm," Trump told reporters at a White House event.

"The level of enthusiasm matters to me."

NATO allies and other Western nations pushed back earlier on Trump's call, made at the weekend, for military hardware.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London was working with allies to craft a "viable" plan to reopen the strait, but ruled out a NATO mission, while Berlin also said it "has been clear at all times that this war is not a matter for NATO".

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said "the question of how Germany might contribute militarily does not arise. We will not do so."

Japan, Australia, Poland, Spain, Greece and Sweden also all distanced themselves from any military involvement in the Strait of Hormuz.

EU foreign ministers discussed the war in Brussels on Monday but showed "no appetite" for extending their Red Sea naval mission to help reopen Hormuz, the bloc's top diplomat said.

Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that it would be "very bad for the future of NATO" if they refused to help, and he has threatened to delay a planned summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Explosions hit the Iranian capital on Monday as air defence systems were activated, an AFP journalist said, and Israel said it had also targeted the cities of Shiraz and Tabriz, but Tehran's foreign minister struck a defiant tone.

"By now they have... understood what kind of nation they are dealing with, one that does not hesitate to defend itself and is ready to continue the war wherever it may lead, and take it as far as necessary," Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Tehran.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards threatened to target US companies in the region, warning employees to evacuate, after the Iranian foreign minister issued a defiant warning to Washington.

A drone sparked a fuel tank fire near Dubai airport, disrupting travel, while a missile killed a civilian in their car in Abu Dhabi, and another drone sparked a blaze in an area housing oil infrastructure in the eastern emirate of Fujairah.

"It has been a difficult few weeks hearing explosions regularly, but the Iranian attacks followed me in my last hours before I could fly back home," a witness at Dubai airport told AFP.

The UAE's state-owned energy giant ADNOC halted the loading of oil into storage tanks at Fujairah, but oil prices pulled back as the International Energy Agency said more strategic oil stocks could be released.

 

Saudi, UAE call

The war has engulfed much of the region, with Iran striking at least 10 countries that host US forces. Its Revolutionary Guards say it has fired some 700 missiles and 3,600 drones.

Saudi Arabia intercepted more than 60 drones overnight, its defence ministry said Monday, and Iraqi authorities said rockets wounded five people the day before at Baghdad's airport, which houses a US diplomatic facility.

Despite the violence and 17 days of internet blackout, some Iranians have sought to restore a sense of normalcy, with cafes and restaurants reopening and the popular Tajrish bazaar busy over the weekend ahead of the upcoming Persian new year.

There is little sign of a popular uprising within Iran, where security forces killed thousands during protests in January.

Judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni said there must be no leniency in issuing "final verdicts" against regime opponents during the war.

More than 1,200 Iranians have been killed by US and Israeli strikes, according to the last toll from Iran's health ministry on March 8, which could not be independently verified.

The UN refugee agency says up to 3.2 million people have been displaced in Iran.

 

United Nations

Iran vowed at the United Nations on Monday that it would not submit to "lawless aggression", saying 90 million citizens were in "grave danger" from US and Israeli strikes.

At the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where countries were discussing the rights situation in Iran, UN experts highlighted Tehran's deadly crackdown on protesters in recent months and warned that repression would likely worsen amid the Middle East war.

Iran's ambassador Ali Bahreini hit back, insisting the focus instead should be on the aggression against his country, "carried out by some of the most lawless and unscrupulous actors on the international stage".

"The most urgent and fundamental human rights issue concerning Iran is the imminent threat to the lives of 90 million people whose lives are in immediate and grave danger under the shadow of reckless military aggression," he told the council.

Bahreini said that if such "reckless militarism" was met with indifference, "Iran will most certainly not be the last country to suffer such treatment".

NYT report

A Saudi Arabian source on Monday dismissed an alleged report by The New York Times about the kingdom's leadership encouraging the United States for a drawn out prolonged war with Iran, Al Arabiya reported.

NYT claimed in a report a day ago that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was advising US President Donald Trump "to keep hitting the Iranians hard".

However, Al Arabiya reported that a "Saudi source" told the outlet today that the NYT report was "false".

 

UAE output

The United Arab Emirates' daily oil output is down by more than half as the Iran conflict and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced state oil giant ADNOC to implement widespread production shut-ins, two sources told Reuters.