British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has put his cabinet on high alert over a possible US strike on Iran, the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing unnamed British officials after a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee to discuss the conflict between Iran and Israel.
They described the situation as "difficult and volatile". According to sources of the publication, the main issue discussed at the meeting is whether US President Donald Trump intends to use the British-American military base on the Diego Garcia atoll in the Chagos archipelago in the central Indian Ocean, if he decides to enter the conflict on the side of Israel.
Sources of the publication said that the participants in the extraordinary meeting - leading ministers, military and intelligence officials, as well as the British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson - were unable to reach a clear answer whether Washington would show such a desire.
As the article says, so far London has managed to stay out of the conflict between Iran and Israel. The publication writes that the United Kingdom "has no intention of doing anything that could lead to the closure of its embassy in Tehran".
A British government spokesman declined to comment on the details of the "hypothetical operation", the Financial Times notes.