ASEAN Foreign Ministers Call for ‘Immediate Cessation’ of Middle East Hostilities

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have expressed “serious concern” over the renewed hostilities between the United States and Iran and called for the resumption of free movement through the Strait of Hormuz. In a joint statement released after the close of the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila on Tuesday, ministers from the 11-nation bloc said that they were “deeply concerned that these developments severely undermine the ongoing efforts of key mediators and diminish the prospects for a peaceful resolution through dialogue and diplomacy.” “We called on all parties concerned to exercise utmost self-restraint and avoid any acts that may further aggravate the situation,” the statement said, while calling for “a complete and immediate cessation of hostilities across all fronts in the Middle East.” The ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., which was initially agreed in April and then formalized in June, collapsed earlier this month after both sides accused the other of reneging on their agreements. The U.S. has since resumed its air attacks on Iran, which have been met by increased Iranian attacks on shipping and targets across the region, one of which killed three U.S. military personnel in Jordan. As Al Jazeera reported, the conflict has in recent days “expanded beyond military targets, with strikes increasingly hitting civilian infrastructure while both sides continue to harden their public positions.” Southeast Asian nations were hit hard by the initial phase of the war, which began with the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28 and prompted Iran to block shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. This led to an immediate spike in the price of oil and gas from the Middle East, the source of around 60 percent of Asia’s crude oil imports. While each nation’s degree of vulnerability to Middle Eastern oil imports differs considerably, ASEAN’s foreign ministers welcomed the initial cessation of hostilities in April, calling for both Iran and the U.S. to “continue negotiations that will lead to the permanent end of the conflict and lasting peace and stability in the region.” Echoing ASEAN’s earlier statements about the conflict, the foreign ministers noted on Tuesday that the return to fighting, which came after a short resumption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, would “immediate and long-term effects” on the region’s people. This also stood to have negative impacts “on regional trade, energy, and food security, including energy markets and supply chains, agricultural production, and the stability of agricultural input supply chains, particularly fertilizers.” Finally, the ministers stressed the importance of maintaining “maritime safety and security, and upholding freedom of navigation in and overflight,” and called for the restoration of the “safe, unimpeded, and continuous transit passage of vessels and aircraft in the Strait of Hormuz.” The resumption of the U.S.-Iran war has overshadowed this week’s ASEAN-related meetings in Manila, which have brought together. During his meeting with ASEAN and other regional leaders yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned them that Iran’s demand to control and collect tolls in the Strait of Hormuz would threaten the world’s economy and set a precedent that could be repeated elsewhere in the world. “If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation-state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll and if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region,” he said. This view is likely to find some purchase within ASEAN. While the bloc’s initial statement on the war on March 4 explicitly noted that it had resulted from “attacks initiated by Israel and the United States,” this week’s statement made no such mention. This could suggest that the bloc now apportions equal responsibility to Iran for the breakdown of the ceasefire, and opposes its determination to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, the region’s governments will not forget that Iran never would have taken such a step were it not for the brazen U.S.-Israeli attack in late February. In any event, an immediate end to the fighting seems like a remote prospect. Rubio said Iran “has been reaching out to the United States, both directly and indirectly, to engage in talks about settling the differences.” While “the U.S. would love to reach a diplomatic settlement,” the Trump administration is “not going to sit by and let ships be blown up or Americans be attacked,” he said. Southeast Asian governments, having just adjusted with some difficulty to the first phase of the conflict, now seem set a renewed – and possibly prolonged – spell of economic turmoil.