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US Asks Germany to Help Secure Strait of Hormuz

VOANews

   The U.S. has officially asked Germany to help secure the strategic
   Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran in the midst of heightened
   tensions in the Persian Gulf region.

   The U.S. embassy in Berlin on Tuesday asked "Germany to join France and
   the UK to help secure the Straits of Hormuz and combat Iranian
   aggression."

   The embassy said Germany agrees the waterway should be protected, and
   it posed the question "protected by whom?"

   The request came one day after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said
   the U.S. would help develop a maritime security plan for commercial
   shipping in the region. But he told the Economic Club of Washington,
   the plan's development "will take more than that we wish it would
   take."

   Tensions in the strait have escalated since U.S. President Donald Trump
   withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and imposed
   sanctions on Iranian oil exports and other key industrial sectors.

   Pompeo predicted the plan would be successful, but he added, "We need
   countries from all across the world to assist us in protecting
   commercial transit."

   Britain recently played a key role in the rising U.S. tensions with
   Iran, when the British Royal Marines participated in the seizure of an
   Iranian oil tanker off the coast of the British territory of Gibraltar.
   Britain maintains the Iranian tanker was suspected of violating
   sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.

   Two weeks later, Iran seized the U.K.-flagged Stena Impero and
   suggested it was in response to Britain's seizure of its tanker.