ROME, March 27. /TASS/. Building a military task force to escort commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz cannot be a long-term solution that would guarantee complete safety to shipping, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Arsenio Dominguez said.
"A military task force to protect commercial ships cannot be a long-term solution. It won't completely eliminate risks, and a vessel could still be hit by a drone or missile," he told La Repubblica in an interview.
According to the IMO chief, "a de-escalation and then an end to this conflict" are the only way for "maritime traffic to resume freely." The passage of ships through the waterway has dropped to below 15% of the previous level when as many as 130 ships transited per day.
The Strait of Hormuz is "only 30 kilometers wide," Dominguez continued. "Finding alternative routes is much more difficult, and in any case, the region's essential goods would not reach the world market," he lamented.
The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. On March 11, Khatam al-Anbiya, the central headquarters of the Iranian army, said that Iran would not allow any oil cargo related to the United States and its allies to be transported through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that accounts for a fifth of global oil exports.