France and UK co-chair 40-nation defence ministers meeting on planned Strait of Hormuz security mission

The United Kingdom and France co-hosted a virtual meeting of defence ministers from more than 40 nations on Tuesday to convert months of diplomatic effort on the Strait of Hormuz into a practical security operation. London described it as the first ministerial-level gathering for the planned multinational mission. UK Defence Secretary John Healey and French minister Catherine Vautrin chaired the talks; Healey said the partners were "turning diplomatic agreement into practical military plans to restore confidence for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz".

The meeting comes against a fragile backdrop. A ceasefire between Iran, the United States and Israel has eased fears of immediate escalation, but maritime traffic through the strait — normally carrying around a fifth of the world's oil supplies — remains severely restricted. Since the US-Israel war on Iran broke out in late February, Tehran has largely closed the route and imposed restrictions on shipping, squeezing global energy supplies and pushing oil prices sharply higher.

France and the UK have already begun pre-positioning assets. Paris deployed the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its escort group last week, and London announced over the weekend that the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon was being sent to the Middle East as part of what officials described as "prudent planning". The Tuesday meeting builds on those deployments — Macron's carrier announcement on May 6 and the HMS Dragon order on May 9 — by widening the operation to a coalition.

Both capitals have sought to frame the operation as stabilising rather than confrontational. Macron said Sunday that France had "never envisaged" a naval deployment directly into the strait itself, describing the initiative as a broader security mission to be "coordinated with Iran". He reiterated his opposition to any blockade in the region and rejected the idea of imposing tolls on vessels crossing the waterway.

Iran has answered with a hard line on the military track. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned the UK and France over the weekend that any deployment of foreign warships into the strait would meet "a decisive and immediate response", adding: "Only the Islamic Republic of Iran can establish security in this strait."

On the diplomatic track Tehran continues to signal openness to a settlement. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday described Tehran's latest proposal to Washington as "legitimate" and "generous", saying it sought an end to the war, lifting of the US blockade and the release of Iranian assets frozen abroad. He added that safe passage through Hormuz and wider regional security guarantees were also part of the Iranian offer.

That opening was rebuffed. US President Donald Trump rejected the response in a social media post on Sunday, calling Tehran's terms "totally unacceptable" without elaborating on the negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled that major obstacles remained before any durable settlement, insisting Iran's nuclear infrastructure would still need to be dismantled.

Incidents on the ground continue to test the ceasefire. Gulf states reported fresh drone activity on Sunday, including interceptions over the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, and Qatar said a freighter entering its waters had been struck by a drone. The Tuesday talks land alongside a separate escalation in early May, when a French-flagged container ship, the San Antonio, was attacked in the strait and its engine room set on fire despite a US naval escort under what Washington has called Project Freedom.