Houthis take Perim as 6,000 seafarers stay stuck in the Gulf
Houthi forces reached Perim on Friday, the island that splits the entrance to the Red Sea into two shipping lanes. At the other end of the route, the International Maritime Organization counts 21 ships attacked and ten seafarers killed since February.
From a kitchen table in Portugal the Red Sea can feel like somebody else’s problem. It is not. A large share of what reaches Europe from Asia comes through it, and on Friday the corridor narrowed again. Houthi fighters reached Perim, the uninhabited island that divides the Bab el-Mandeb into two shipping lanes, after Yemeni government troops pulled back. The day before, they had taken the port of Mokha further up the same coast. Hold Perim and you effectively decide who sails through.
At the far end of the same route, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed to normal traffic since 28 February, when the American and Israeli offensive against Iran began. The tally is grim and it is public: the International Maritime Organization has confirmed 21 attacks on merchant ships and ten seafarer deaths, with roughly 400 vessels and 6,000 crew unable to leave the Persian Gulf safely. The evacuation plan the organisation drew up is still on hold.
Who is actually going to Salalah?
That deadlock is what Monday’s meeting is about. Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers are due to sit down with their Iranian counterpart in Salalah, in southern Oman, the first meeting at that level since the war started. Oman and Iran are the two states that share Hormuz, and they set up a joint committee on the strait back in June. The plan now is to agree a shared route and notify it to the IMO, which is the body that registers traffic separation schemes.
Not everyone is coming. Bahrain said on Saturday it will not join collective meetings that include Iran until diplomatic relations are restored, having broken them off in 2016. Manama pointed to this week’s attack on the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia and to a strike on an ammonia tank on Bahraini soil, and argued that Hormuz should be open without fees, permits or discrimination. Saudi Arabia restored ties with Tehran in 2023. Bahrain never did.
Why Portugal should care
Almost entirely because of energy. Nearly all the natural gas that entered the country last year came ashore at Sines, and it arrives on ships that run these exact routes. Brent fell more than three per cent on Friday as soon as the Salalah meeting was reported, which says less about peace breaking out and more about how much a negotiated corridor is worth.
One caution, after a fast week. None of this is signed. Scheduling a meeting is one thing; leaving it with a route that shipowners will actually use is another.
Image: Michael Kleiner / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
