Eight nations from Europe and the Indo-Pacific have jointly warned that interference with key maritime routes is unacceptable and vowed to deepen cooperation on shared security challenges. Foreign ministers and senior representatives of South Korea, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, and Britain issued the statement following a meeting in New York on Tuesday, held on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly. The group condemned disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandab Strait — two critical chokepoints for global trade and energy shipping — and reaffirmed their commitment to UNCLOS (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea), while also calling for dialogue over the Taiwan Strait and a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.