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Defense Minister Guido Crosetto announced it in Parliament on Wednesday: «if peace broke out, it would take almost a month of sailing for all the units of the allied nations to reach the Gulf. As a precaution we are thus arranging for two minehunter units to be positioned relatively closer to the Strait.” And today the “Crotone” and the “Rimini”, the two units specialized in the delicate task of clearing water from bombs, left from the port of Augusta, in Sicily.
Route towards Djibouti, strategic crossroads between Suez and the Gulf
The destination for now is Djibouti, where there is an Italian base in an area that is a strategic crossroads for the maritime communication lines that are directed from the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, towards the Persian Gulf and South East Asia. These are two slow units and therefore, with a couple of stops, they could reach the Gulf area in about a month.
The support ships: the “Atlante” and the “Montecuccoli”
During the navigation they will be joined by a logistical support ship, the “Atlante”, and by a multi-role combat unit with air defense systems, the “Montecuccoli”. The crews are made up of around 400 soldiers who have trained in the Mediterranean in recent weeks. The contribution of the Italian naval group will be integrated into the future device that will be developed by the twenty nations that have indicated their willingness to intervene in Hormuz, an area at great risk due to the mines deposited by Iranian forces.
Crosetto’s stakes: a legal framework and Iran’s agreement are needed
The “limitations” to the Italian intervention were pointed out by Crosetto. «We need – he explained to the Chambers – a legitimate international legal framework and the agreement of all the interested parties: clearly a mission of any type must include the agreement of all the countries in that area, because if Iran did not agree it would not be a mission that could proceed peacefully.
In this case we would risk being bombed and since we are not going there with assets to wage war, we could not risk it. Therefore there must be peace, a shared truce, because otherwise there cannot be a mission of this type.”
Minesweepers ready to intervene when the green light is given
It will therefore take some time for the conditions desired by the minister to occur. In the meantime, the minehunters are approaching the area of operation, so as to be ready to intervene immediately when the mission receives the approval of all the parties involved.