![\"\u2018They](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/438071d276ba1dc3a46d7d4abfd7ca64.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAustralia’s participation in a United Kingdom\u2013France operation to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz is firmly on the table, despite the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s efforts to downplay any involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK and France are planning to lead a multinational mission to\u00a0secure international shipping routes, as\u00a0a fragile agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was broken overnight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Albanese government has not ruled out participating in any eventuating operation.<\/p>\n
Sky News understands it will consider supporting the nations where required\u00a0as Australians\u00a0monitor\u00a0developments in the Middle East and bear the economic impacts at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The government had been hoping positive developments in Iran earlier in the weekend would lead to\u00a0an early end\u00a0to the war, though on Sunday Tehran cited\u00a0\u201cmajor differences\u201d between the nations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the Prime Minister said Australia could offer a \u201cfull range\u201d of assistance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spoke about the full range of support that could be\u00a0required, now that could be diplomatic measures,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to be a constructive contributor to that debate… Australia is a long way away as well from the Strait compared to European nations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0fair to say\u00a0we\u2019ll\u00a0give considerations to\u00a0requests where they are made.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It came after he joined a virtual Leaders\u2019 Summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir\u00a0Starmer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr\u00a0Starmer said a defensive military mission would be launched to protect \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as \u201cconditions allow\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Approximately 20 per cent of the world\u2019s oil passes through the waterway during peacetime.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said \u201cover a dozen\u201d countries\u00a0had\u00a0already offered to contribute assets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added the operation would be \u201cstrictly peaceful and defensive as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Talking to Sky News on Sunday morning, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy remained tight-lipped on the prospect of aiding the Brits and French with assets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not quite at that stage of talking about specifics about what would be deployed and when,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We were one of 49 countries that participated in the Strait of Hormuz Freedom of Navigation Summit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve said\u00a0we’re\u00a0prepared to consider requests, but\u00a0we’re\u00a0already providing the Wedgetail [Boeing surveillance\u00a0aircraft].\u00a0We’re\u00a0already part of\u00a0the diplomatic\u00a0efforts. So,\u00a0we’ll\u00a0just see what comes\u00a0of\u00a0the London Summit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a critical part of it is de-escalating the conflict. I\u00a0haven’t\u00a0seen anyone suggest that the efforts led by the Europeans would be going in while there was an active conflict.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr\u00a0Albanese earlier in the\u00a0week,\u00a0only\u00a0revealed\u00a0there were \u201cdiscussions taking place\u201d\u00a0about involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have said that we want the Strait of Hormuz to be\u00a0open\u00a0and\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0been a signatory, along with other countries, to statements along those lines.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Italy\u00a0indicated\u00a0it would commit \u201cnaval units\u201d,\u00a0while Germany said it would take part in further \u201cplanning discussions\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump for his part warned North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries to \u201cstay away\u201d from the strait.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help,\u201d he wrote on his Truth Social platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iran has disrupted trade and thoroughfare through the strait with strikes on ships and imposed tolls in exchange for safe passage but reached an agreement with the US to open the passageway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The US, however,\u00a0has continued\u00a0blockading Iranian ports and ships\u00a0over the past week and\u00a0Tehran on Sunday said the move would force them to close the strait again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s participation in a United Kingdom\u2013France operation to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz is firmly on the table,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77895,2324,64,63,2592,38675,44,21033,6895,47714,143126,77274,5429],"class_list":{"0":"post-616074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-albo","9":"tag-anthony-albanese","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-navy","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-operation","16":"tag-prime-minister","17":"tag-sky-news","18":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","19":"tag-troops","20":"tag-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616074","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=616074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}