By John Irish
PARIS, April 14 (Reuters) – Discussion led by Britain and France of steps to open the Strait of Hormuz will include possible financial sanctions on Iran if it keeps the waterway blocked, and steps to work with industry to resume shipping, a source said on Tuesday.
Paris and London, who have sought to take leadership of the initiative after previous military and political meetings, are seeking to show their willingness to play a role in restoring freedom of navigation once the conflict ends.
The offices of France’s President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday they would co-chair a video conference on Friday of some 40 countries that are willing to contribute to the multilateral mission.
Senior diplomats will hold a call ahead of Friday to prepare the meeting, three other European diplomats said.
According to a person familiar with the matter, this week’s meetings will centre on four working groups: championing freedom of navigation and maritime security, pursuing economic measures against Iran if the strait stays closed, securing the release of seafarers and trapped ships, and working with industry to support their readiness to resume transit.
A second diplomatic source confirmed the four working groups.
One of the sources said Britain was leading the diplomatic track, while France was working on the military planning, which would assess what assets could be available from contributing nations and how they could be deployed.
Iran has largely closed the strait to ships apart from its own since the start of U.S.-Israeli air strikes on February 28. On Monday, Washington imposed a blockade of ships entering or exiting Iranian ports.
Trump has called on other countries to help impose the blockade. Britain, France and others say they will not do so, as this would mean joining the war, but they would be willing to help keep the strait open when fighting ends.
The sources said that talks were still preparatory and any mission could only happen once the conflict was over and with some form of accord from Iran and the United States.
“The United States needs to get its act together. It’s paradoxical at the moment because the ones that are most unpredictable are the U.S.,” said a senior European diplomat.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray and Michel Rose; Editing by Dominique Vidalon and Peter Graff)
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