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Strait of Hormuz: Merchant Shipping

The noble Lord makes an interesting and important point. The commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is an important restatement of the fundamental principle, not only in the Middle East but across the world, of the freedom of navigation. It is an extremely important point and the noble Lord is right to remind us of it. That remains our policy objective with respect to the Strait of Hormuz. It is an international waterway; it should be free and the freedom of navigation should operate there. On the noble Lord’s other point about nuclear, I reread the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States, and, for me, that could have been followed through to start addressing many issues, including the nuclear issue that he referred to.