Germany will not commit to a Strait Of Hormuz Mine Clearance mission until the terms of the U.S. and Iran agreement are clear, Johann Wadephul said in Berlin on Wednesday. The foreign minister said Berlin needs to know exactly what the deal contains before it can even consider taking part.
That timing matters because the U.S. and Iran are due to sign their memorandum of understanding on Friday, but the document had not been released when Wadephul spoke. He said he wanted to see the 14 points put forward by the U.S. and Iran officially, not just through press releases, and argued that Germany must know whether a mission in that maritime area is legally possible at all.
Germany is expected to contribute minesweepers if a mission eventually goes ahead, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government has repeatedly said it needs a clear legal basis before sending them. Wadephul said the European Union’s Aspides mandate could provide that foundation and suggested discussing an adaptation of the mandate inside the European framework.
For now, though, that legal route is still narrow. The Aspides mandate currently covers the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman, but it stops short of the Strait of Hormuz. Berlin and Warsaw have said the existing mandate could offer a legal basis for a mission in the Persian Gulf, yet EU leaders rejected expanding it at a summit in March.
Wadephul also pointed to another obstacle: consent from the coastal states. He said there had been ambiguity on the Iranian side, including words of rejection, and added that Germany needs the coastal states to agree before any deployment can be drafted. That leaves the practical shape of any European mission unresolved, even as the talks over the U.S. and Iran memorandum move toward Friday.
Other European capitals are weighing the same problem from different directions. Radosław Sikorski said Poland was considering creating a legal framework for an Aspides mission once military operations had ended, while Emmanuel Macron said at a G7 summit on Tuesday that he could be ready to deploy fighter jets and frigates quickly if requested by the U.S., Iran and Oman. Wadephul’s message, by contrast, was that Germany is not ready to move on equipment alone. It wants the text, the legal cover and the consent first.
The result is a familiar European hesitation over a Gulf mission that could eventually depend on minesweepers, but not yet on Germany. Friday’s signing may answer some of the political questions; the harder ones are whether the mandate can be stretched far enough and whether Iran and the other coastal states will accept it.
