South Korea to attend multilateral meeting on Strait of Hormuz this week

Seoul, April 14 South Korea will attend a multilateral meeting this week on joint efforts to stabilise the Strait of Hormuz, including ways to ensure free and safe passage through the waterway in the event of an end to the Middle East conflict, officials said Tuesday.

The online meeting, set for late Wednesday (Seoul time), is a follow-up to the Britain-led ministerial meeting of more than 40 countries that took place earlier this month regarding the maritime chokepoint where thousands of vessels and crew remain stranded, Yonhap News Agency reported.

South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Eui-hae will participate in the virtual gathering, which will be led by Britain and France.

"While it is difficult to speed up discussions since the conflict has yet to come to an end, the objective of the meeting is to identify concrete measures to stabilise the strait after the conflict, through coordination in diplomatic and military tracks," a foreign ministry official said.

Following the last meeting on April 2, the participants called for an "immediate and unconditional" reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and discussed possible collective action, including through the United Nations, to urge Iran to allow unimpeded transit through the shipping lane, the chair's statement read.

The meeting also called for working together to secure the release of ships and sailors stranded in the strait, and restore the movement of vessels, as well as to ensure coherent and timely information sharing in coordination with shipping operators and industry bodies.

The upcoming meeting comes as Seoul is believed to have shared information with Tehran about its ships and crew stranded in the strait, in an apparent move aimed at securing their passage during the two-week ceasefire.

However, the situation remains volatile after the peace talks between the United States and Iran failed to reach a deal. The US announcement of its Navy-led blockade of the shipping route is also seen as adding to the complexity of the issue.

South Korea has also participated in a France-led top military officials' meeting on March 26, as well as a separate meeting involving military planners and other experts the following week.

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