The German government has rejected US President Donald Trump's request for NATO allies to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, reports "Politico".
It stressed that the Alliance has no place in the war.
"This war has nothing to do with NATO. "This is not a NATO war," said Stefan Cornelius, a spokesman for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in Berlin.
"NATO is a defense alliance, an alliance for the defense of its territory," he said.
Yesterday, Trump warned NATO allies that they faced a "very bad future" if they refused to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, pressuring Europe to support American efforts to reopen the key sea corridor.
The German government has said it will not assist in these efforts while the war rages.
"As long as this war continues, there will be no participation, not even in the option of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open by military means," Cornelius said, adding that he was not aware of any official request from the U.S. government for Germany to participate in such a mission.
"I would also like to "to remind us that the US and Israel did not consult us before the war and that Washington explicitly stated at the beginning of the conflict that European help was neither necessary nor desired," he pointed out.
The German chancellor was initially much more supportive of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran than many of her European colleagues.
While French President Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders condemned the US-Israeli strikes as illegal, Merz traveled to the Oval Office and told Trump that he was "on the same page" on the need to overthrow the regime in Tehran.
As the war progressed and its economic and strategic consequences for the EU's largest economy became clearer, however, Merz became much more openly critical of the US and Israeli attacks and publicly expressed his concerns that Trump had no strategy for ending the fighting in the Persian Gulf.
"Germany's position has always been that we agree in principle with the goal, namely to achieve a change in the political situation in Iran in order to facilitate a peaceful solution for the region," Cornelius explained today. "However - and this is the second point, which is no less important - we are increasingly asking ourselves about the right path to achieve this goal."