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Tension between the US and Europe over the Iran war was high on Friday as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined a G7 meeting in France a day late.
As he boarded his plane, Mr Rubio expressed displeasure with European reluctance to intervene militarily to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blockaded since the US and Israel jointly launched a war against Tehran last month.
“The United States is constantly being asked to help in … a war that's happening on another continent in Ukraine, but when the US had a need, we didn't get positive responses,” Mr Rubio said. “A couple of leaders in Europe said that this [Iran] was not Europe’s war. Well, Ukraine isn’t America's war, yet we’ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world.”
This criticism echoed previous statements by US President Donald Trump but probably sounded particularly harsh to European ears coming from Mr Rubio, widely viewed in Europe as the most sympathetic senior US official to Ukraine.
“I’m not there to make them happy,” Mr Rubio said. “I get along with all of them on a personal level, and we work with those governments very carefully, but the people I’m interested in making happy are the people of the United States. That’s who I work for. I don’t work for France or Germany or Japan.”
He later posted on X a picture of him sitting at a round-table with G7 counterparts, in addition to Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. "Today at the G7 I reiterated that President Trump is committed to reaching a ceasefire and negotiated settlement to the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible," Mr Rubio said.
Nato criticism
Mr Rubio skipped the first day of the G7 meeting outside Paris due to commitments at the White House, according to French sources. Foreign ministers from Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Ukraine were also been invited to the talks taking place in a 12th-century abbey converted into a five-star hotel.
Mr Trump has heavily criticised Nato for refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying on Thursday he was “very disappointed” with the alliance, which he compared to “small potatoes,” for “doing absolutely nothing”.
Of the G7 nations – besides the US – Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy are members of the trans-Atlantic military alliance. Japan is the only one that is not.
Europeans have been trying to strike a delicate balance of acting involved in re-opening the strait without appearing like they are taking part in the conflict. France has said it was open to taking part in a defence maritime mission once the conflict is over. "This war is not our war, it's important to recall that," Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin told French broadcaster CNews on Thursday.
Speaking at the G7, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said she wanted "to see a swift resolution that reaches regional stability and security and opens the Strait of Hormuz." Iran “cannot hold the global economy hostage”, Ms Cooper added.
The closure of the strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil is shipped in normal times, has caused crude prices to soar and sparked shortages in some countries. Concern is growing that the global supply of downstream products such as fertiliser will also be affected.
Mr Trump has said he is negotiating with Iran to end the war and has extended a deadline to April 7 threatening to bomb the country's energy infrastructure if Tehran does not reopen the strait by then.
While Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has given his full support to Mr Trump and the war against Iran, despite European scepticism, other leaders have publicly spoken out against the US administration.
In an interview on Thursday with MSNBC, the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Mr Trump's accusations were “not correct”.
She said the US had not invoked Nato procedures for drawing military support, including Article 5, which enables collective defence in case of an attack against an ally.
“As far as I know none of this has been triggered,” Ms Kallas said. The only time Article 5 was triggered by Nato was after the September 11, 2001, attacks against the US.
Russia-Iran co-operation
A former Estonian prime minister with hawkish views on Russia, Ms Kallas has also attempted to garner waning US sympathy for Ukraine by highlighting Moscow's support to Iran in attacking American military bases in the Middle East.
“Russia is helping Iran with intelligence to target Americans, to kill Americans, and Russia is also supporting Iran now with the drones so that they can attack neighbouring countries and also US military bases,” Ms Kallas said on arrival at the G7 meeting on Thursday. “So these wars are very much interlinked,” she added.
US-brokered peace talks between Ukraine and Russia appear to have stalled since the start of the Iran war. Ukraine has been fending off an attempted Russian invasion for more than four years and is now offering to share with Gulf states its expertise on intercepting Iranian-made Shahed drones also used by Moscow.
Ms Kallas's comments were cautiously backed by the G7 host, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. “There is reason to believe that today, Russia supports Iran's military efforts, which appear to be directed particularly at American targets,” Mr Barrot said.
These accusations have been denied by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. “We have supplied Iran with military equipment, but we cannot accept these accusations that we are passing intelligence to Iran,” Mr Lavrov told French broadcaster France 2 on Thursday.
