• UK FM urges swift resolution to conflict that restores regional stability
• At World Trade Organisation meeting, US faces pressure to clarify trade policies
CERNAY VILLE: G7 allies were on Friday pressing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for clarity on American plans for Iran almost one month into the war in the Middle East, with concern also intensifying over the extent of cooperation between Russia and the Islamic republic.
Having skipped the first day of the meeting at the historic monastery turned luxury hotel complex outside Paris, Rubio arrived at the Vaux-de-Cernay Abbey for a full day of talks with counterparts from leading industrialised democracies.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the international community needed to collaborate even more closely now it was dealing with two wars — including the conflict sparked by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine — in which Russia and Iran were cooperating.
“We need to strengthen our unity. Given that Iran and Russia are working together in the closest way, we must stand even closer together,” Wadephul told reporters.
He told German radio earlier ahead of the talks that allies needed to know “how the US will proceed” in Iran. Rubio, he said, would “perhaps explain this more precisely”.
In contrast to usual protocol, and in a sign of the distance between the United States and its allies, there is to be no joint communique at the end of the meeting.
Instead, the G7 presidency, which France holds this year, will issue a statement, said a diplomatic source who asked not to be named.
‘For the world’
The UK’s foreign minister Yvette Cooper urged a “swift resolution to this conflict that restores regional stability”.
She echoed concerns over the ongoing de facto blockade by Iran of the key Strait of Hormuz, which has driven up global oil prices and left vessels queueing up to enter the energy bottleneck.
“Frankly, Iran cannot be able to just hold the global economy hostage as a result
of a Strait which is about international shipping routes and the freedom of navigation,” she said.
It is Rubio’s first trip abroad since the United States and Israel launched the war with the air strikes on February 28 that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Writing on X, in his first comment on the meeting, Rubio said he had reiterated at the G7 “that President Trump is committed to reaching a ceasefire and negotiated settlement to the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible”.
WTO meet
Meanwhile, the US is set to come under scrutiny on day two of the World Trade Organisation’s ministerial conference, with Washington wanting to shake up the multilateral trade system.
In the corridors of the WTO gathering in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde, a lot of the talk is about the United States.
“The Americans are highly awaited; without them, we can’t move forward,” confided one delegate from a Southeast Asian country, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“US trade policy measures are a corrective response to a trading system, embodied by the WTO, that has overseen and contributed to severe and sustained imbalances,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Wednesday.
Under successive presidents, Washington is also accused of blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO’s Appellate Body — a mechanism for resolving trade disputes between countries — which has been paralysed since late 2019.
The US position, however, seems rigid. Washington has issued two documents, the latest on Monday, on reforming the WTO, contesting some of its fundamental rules.
Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2026
