Britain could send minesweeping drones to help clear vital oil route

No 10 fears agreeing to US demand for warships might escalate crisis

- Kiran Stacey Hannah Ellis-Petersen Dubai

Volunteers work in Tehran yesterday to clear debris from a residential building damaged in a strike on a nearby police station

(Vahid Salemi/AP)

Ministers are drawing up plans to send minesweeping drones to the strait of Hormuz amid concerns in Whitehall that complying with Donald Trump's demand to send ships could escalate the crisis.

The government is working on plans to send aerial minesweepers to help clear the vital waterway of mines in an attempt to allow the flow oil exports to resume. However, officials say that sending ships to secure the vital shipping route, as requested over the weekend by the US president, could make the situation worse given the volatile nature of the war.

What amounts to closure of the strait of Hormuz by Tehran, in retaliation for airstrikes by the US and Israel, has proved catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing the largest oil supply disruption in history and soaring global oil prices. The international response to Donald Trump's call for the dispatch of warships has so far proved vague and reluctant, with countries unwilling to commit to a military response that could prove treacherous.

Tehran has said any oil tanker heading for the US, Israel or its allies is a legitimate target in the war and will be "immediately destroyed". Sixteen tankers have been attacked in the strait of Hormuz since the war started at the end of February and Iran has threatened to lay explosive mines in the waterway. So far, the US has not sent its own navy ships to escort tankers through the strait.

Keir Starmer and Trump discussed "the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to end the disruption to global shipping, which is driving up costs worldwide", in a call yesterday, Downing Street said.