External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been persistently working to put the US-Indian relationship back on track. Their conversation on Friday on the sidelines of the G7 meeting at Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay, a former Cistercian monastery in northern France surrounded in unspoilt nature, which focused on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, seems to have retrieved some gravitas of the strategic content in the relationship. 

The US is turning the Strait of Hormuz crisis, which is the number one priority today for President Donald Trump, into an opportunity to work together with New Delhi and create synergy for the US-Indian relationship. On its part, Delhi must be calculating that it will create some equity by helping out Trump who is in a tight corner struggling to end the war,  which he realises belatedly is not winnable.

In the past week, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made calls to their Indian counterparts and the focus of their discussion was on the West Asian situation where the Trump administration’s aim is to end the conflict, which is only possible if Iran allows freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. 

The G7 meeting yesterday considered that Tehran may introduce a new regime for the strait with a ‘toll system’ and impose a fee on ships that use the waterway. Rubio called any such move to be “unacceptable.” On the other hand, Iran wields great advantage in the geography of the Hormuz Strait and it is risky for the Americans to militarily assert and seize control and operate the sea lanes in that part of the Persian Gulf in Iran’s territorial waters — leave alone establish dominance over the strait........

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