France and Italy are negotiating with Iran, the Financial Times claimed

France and Italy are negotiating with Iran for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the fact that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in his first statement after his election that the strategic strait would remain blocked, the Financial Times claimed.

According to the newspaper’s sources, it is not yet clear at what stage the talks are, nor how many other countries are trying to negotiate with the Islamic Republic. Italy, however, denied the newspaper’s information about negotiations with Iran.

For now, shipping companies are turning to the American and other Western navies to provide escort for their tankers. Italy, France and Greece have warships in the Red Sea as part of the EU Aspides maritime protection mission. However, according to the newspaper’s sources, no European navy is ready to accompany the ships through the Strait of Hormuz, if that would mean the risk of an Iranian attack and thus an escalation of the war.

Supplies through the narrow strait at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas usually flow, are now negligible. Turkey announced on Friday that one of its ships had safely passed through Hormuz. However, she sailed with an Iranian permit.

Oil prices rose from nearly $60 per barrel at the beginning of the year to around $100 per barrel, while European natural gas prices rose by 75 percent over the same period, the Financial Times recalled.

The vast majority of European governments are concerned about how a permanent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could increase energy costs for households and businesses and put further pressure on already strained state budgets. “But the EU states have very different views on possible negotiations with Iran,” noted one of the newspaper’s sources.

According to the letter, Britain, which no longer belongs to the union, went “on its own way”. London claims that it is not directly negotiating with Iran about safe passage through Hormuz, but British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper, who is visiting Saudi Arabia, is discussing the continuity of oil supplies with the Persian Gulf states.