Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has told US counterpart Marco Rubio that Australia would continue “diplomatic efforts” to ensure continued fuel and diesel shipments after the Albanese government failed to sign a joint letter pledging to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
Leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, and Canada jointly signed the Thursday statement in which the US allies expressed “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through” the integral strait.
“We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning,” the statement read.
Australia, however, was not a signatory of the statement.
It comes after Donald Trump expressed frustration earlier this week with US allies that he said had refused to intervene to help ensure the free flow of ships through the strait, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil flows.
On Friday, Senator Wong said she had spoken to US Secretary of State Mr Rubio in a morning call.
The pair discussed Iran’s “dangerous and destabilising attacks and its weaponisation of the Strait of Hormuz” during the call, according to a statement, as well as international efforts to ensure safe passage.
“I expressed Australia’s condemnation of Iran’s deliberate attacks on merchant vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” Senator Wong.
“Iran’s actions have triggered severe global energy shocks, causing oil and fuel prices to surge, which is putting pressure on households, industries and supply chains.
“We agreed that the international community must keep working together to ensure critical waterways are not held hostage by the Iranian regime.
“Australia does not want to see the conflict continue to escalate.”
Senator Wong spoke with counterparts in the EU, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea during the week.
She was also expected to speak with Indian Foreign Minister Dr S. Jaishankar on Friday afternoon.
‘Aggressors’
A senior Iranian official said Australia had “decided to take side with the aggressors” while warning that his country “cannot distinguish between offensive and defensive operation” in the spiralling Middle East conflict.
The federal government last week announced it would deploy a military reconnaissance plane, dozens of personnel to operate it and defensive missiles to the United Arab Emirates after the Gulf country requested help to defend against Iranian strikes.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said overnight any Australian military assets in the Persian Gulf could be targets.
“We have the inherent right to self-defence against offensive or defensive operation against us,” Mr Baghaei told the ABC’s 7.30.
“We cannot recognise that those military assets being deployed to intercept our missiles, our drones against the aggressors would be regarded simply as defensive.
“That’s going to be part of this aggression.”
He also took issue with Australia’s offer of asylum to players of the Iran women’s football team.
Two players, Fatemeh Pasandideh and Atefeh Ramezanisadeh, chose to stay in Australia after the team was knocked out of the Women’s Asian Cup.
Others initially requested asylum but changed their minds.
Remaining players arrived back in Tehran on Friday after a days-long journey due to airspace closures in the Middle East.
Mr Baghaei accused Australia of taking the players “hostage”.
“When they first they were invited to go to a room under the pretext of clarifying the doping or something like that, then they put a paper beside them, ‘Please sign these papers, you can be given asylum, you can be given all what you need’,” he said, contradicting Australian officials and sources familiar with players’ cases.
He also accused Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke of “a shameful sham posture” by posing for a photo with players.
The team gained international praise for remaining silent as the Iranian national anthem played before their first game.
But their protest sparked condemnation in their homeland, with state media declaring them “traitors”.
Earlier this month, state television presenter Mohammad Reza Shahbazi lambasted the players, saying that in “wartime conditions, going (to Australia) and refusing to sing the national anthem is the height of shamelessness and betrayal”.
“Both the people and the authorities should treat them as traitors in a time of war, not as individuals staging some kind of symbolic protest,” he said.
“The disgrace of this shameless betrayal should remain on their shoulders, and they must be properly dealt with so that others take a warning from it.”
Public support for the team exploded in Australia, with the Albanese government pushed to offer asylum.
Among those urging the government to help were Iranian groups in Australian and US President Donald Trump, who said Washington would offer asylum if Canberra did not.
Trump’s US$200bn request
The Trump administration has confirmed it is appealing to Congress for an extra US$200bn ($282bn) for the war effort.
“This is a very volatile world,” he told reporters on Thursday (Friday AEDT).
“We want to have vast amounts of ammunition, which we have right now – we have a lot of ammunition, but it was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine.”
During a later press conference, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said it “takes money to kill bad guys” and that the Pentagon needed more for “what we may have to do in the future”.
The funds would come on top of the Department of War’s annual US$838.7bn ($1.2 trillion) budget, which Congress approved earlier this year.
With the Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, Mr Trump should have the numbers to get the funding through.
Defence officials have put the cost of the first week of the conflict at $11.3bn.
Saturday will mark four weeks and there is no end in sight, prompting fears of a prolonged disruption to global energy supplies.
