Recent U.S. complaints about NATO allies and threats to quit the alliance are pushing European countries to seek alternative security arrangements, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Tuesday.
After European countries declined to send their navies to open up the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping following the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran on 28 February, U.S. President Donald Trump has declared he is considering withdrawing from the alliance, thrusting it into a crisis.
Albares said the decision was entirely up to Trump, but underscored that NATO allies stood in solidarity with Washington after the 11 September, 2001 attacks.
"NATO is a mutually beneficial alliance for both Europeans and Americans ... But the U.S. administration's remarks and new positions on Euro-Atlantic security are inviting us Europeans to take a leap in terms of our sovereignty and defence matters," Albares told La Sexta TV channel.
"We must take our citizens' security and dissuasion into our own hands," he added.
To do so, he said, the EU should advance toward a pan-European army and integrate its defence industries, but also create a digital single market and a capital markets union.
Spain's leftist government has become one of the most vocal critics of the war on Iran, which it calls illegal and reckless. It has closed Spanish airspace to U.S. planes involved in the strikes and banned them from using jointly operated military bases in southern Spain. Trump has vowed to retaliate against Spain using trade tariffs.
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An agreement between Iran and the U.S. to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is expected "soon," a U.S. official has said. The deal would result in the resumption of commercial shipping through the sea passage and the lifting of an American naval blockade on Iranian ports.
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A deal on a new route for vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is "very close," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said, while warning that the reopening of the waterway depends on the U.S. meeting other conditions, including paying compensation to Iran.
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U.S. President Donald Trump says Washington is “semi-negotiating” with Iran as uncertainty surrounds efforts to ease regional tensions.
A deal on a new route for vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is "very close," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said, while warning that the reopening of the waterway depends on the U.S. meeting other conditions, including paying compensation to Iran.
An agreement between Iran and the U.S. to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is expected "soon," a U.S. official has said. The deal would result in the resumption of commercial shipping through the sea passage and the lifting of an American naval blockade on Iranian ports.
U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz are progressing and suggested an agreement with Iran could be reached “soon”.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, two key maritime chokepoints in the region, decreased significantly from the previous day, according to shipping data.
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