Australia will join the United States in a coalition of countries protecting oil tankers and cargo ships from threats posed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morrison said Australia will send a P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane to the Middle East for one month before the end of 2019, while an Australian frigate will be deployed in January 2020 for six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia\u2019s deployment will expand US-led efforts to secure the strait, which lies between Oman and Iran, after tensions spiked between Iran and the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Global commodity trading has been rocked in recent months after a series of Iranian attacks on international merchant vessels and the seizure of a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which almost a fifth of the world\u2019s oil passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe government has decided that it is in Australia\u2019s national interest to work with our international partners to contribute. Our contribution will be limited in scope and it will be time-bound,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington, which has by far the strongest Western naval contingent in the Gulf, has been calling for its allies to join it in an operation to guard shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, European countries, which disagree with a US decision to impose sanctions on Iran, have been reluctant to sign up to a US-led mission for fear of adding to tension in the region.US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington in 2018 from an international deal to curb Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia will join the United States in a coalition of countries protecting oil tankers and cargo ships from threats posed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday. Morrison said Australia will send a P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane to the Middle East for one month before the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68643,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68641\/revisions\/68643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}