Australia has joined 21 other countries in signing a joint commitment to safeguard oil tanker transit through the Strait of Hormuz amid the US-Israel-Iran war.<\/p>\n
The joint statement, which condemns Iran\u2019s retaliatory attacks on vessels, was released last week but was updated on Sunday with a string of new signatories, including Australia, Estonia, Romania, Sweden and Norway, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
The coalition of nations has expressed \u201creadiness to contribute to appropriate efforts\u201d, however, the Australian government has not revealed what, if any, assets it will deploy to the critical trade waterway.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, Anthony Albanese\u2019s government has remained firm that it won\u2019t engage in a war offensive. It has sent \u201cpurely defensive\u201d support to the Middle East to help defend Gulf nations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,\u201d the republished statement, released by UAE\u2019s foreign ministry, stated on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning.\u201d<\/p>\n It declared that nations had the ability to respond consistent with UNSC Resolution 2817, insisting that Iran\u2019s strikes had disrupted the global energy supply which was a \u201cthreat to international peace and security\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this regard, we call for an immediate comprehensive moratorium on attacks on civilian infrastructure, including oil and gas installations,\u201d it stated.<\/p>\n When asked on Sunday what assets Australia would commit as part of its a contribution to the joint push, Defence Minister Richard Marles\u2019 office only reiterated his confirmation that it would \u201cwork with our friends and partners in accordance with that statement\u201d.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman pointed to his previous statements that the United States hadn\u2019t made requests to Australia for navy support.<\/p>\n \u201cIn respect of the Straits of Hormuz, we do not have a request from the United States in respect of that,\u201d he had said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you are aware, there is a British\u2011led statement which Australia has signed. We will very much want to see the Straits of Hormuz opened and we will work with our friends and partners in accordance with that statement.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia has stationed an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft to the region as well as an undisclosed quantity of advanced medium range missiles in a \u201cpurely defensive\u201d capacity.<\/p>\n The UK has reportedly positioned nuclear-powered submarines in the Arabian sea equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles amid the escalating conflict.<\/p>\n HMS Anson was docked in Perth earlier this month but has reportedly travelled about 5500 miles towards the Middle East.<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Penny Wong has also condemned the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, last week accusing Iran of weaponising it in retaliation for the US and Israel strikes.<\/p>\n The waterway is critical for more than 20 per cent of the world\u2019s oil and has sparked global concern over energy since the war broke out.<\/p>\n US President Donald Trump has expressed public frustration by its closure on both TruthSocial and in White House press appearances, calling on international partners to help tankers pass safely.<\/p>\n Mr Trump gave Tehran an ultimatum on Sunday, warning the US would \u201chit and obliterate\u201d Iranian power plants \u201cstarting with the biggest one first\u201d if it didn\u2019t open the Strait in 48 hours.<\/p>\n However, Iran says that the Strait is already open, just not to the US and its allies and has vowed it will retaliate against all US-linked energy infrastructure in the Middle East.<\/p>\n In 2023 Australia declined a formal request from the Biden administration to send a warship to the Red Sea amid similar attacks on vessels under a US-led multinational coalition.<\/p>\n Labor frontbencher Catherine King had last Monday claimed that Australia would not be deploying a warship to the conflict zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has joined 21 other countries in signing a joint commitment to safeguard oil tanker transit through the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-556931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}