DThe British government is willing to demonstrate its diplomatic and military clout in the Middle East. Before his fourth trip to the region in three months, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Britain was ready to push ahead with the recognition of an independent Palestinian state if this could bring an end to the military conflict in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense announced that it was considering sending a British aircraft carrier to the Red Sea if the American carrier leading a convoy of warships there to protect the sea route had to be replaced in the near future.

Cameron told a London reception for ambassadors from Arab states that the UK had a responsibility to show what a Palestinian state could look like. The Palestinian people must be shown “irreversible progress” towards a two-state solution. Cameron said the British government would discuss the issue of recognizing a Palestinian state with its allies.

The Royal Navy has already stationed several ships

The Royal Navy is currently present in the Red Sea with a destroyer, a frigate and three minesweepers to repel drone and missile attacks by the Yemeni Houthi militias on merchant ships as part of the international mission “Prosperity Guardian”. The American Navy is providing an aircraft carrier and three destroyers, and Greece has sent a frigate.

British forces also took part in two retaliatory strikes against Houthi launch bases, although the counterattacks were carried out not by Royal Navy ships, which newspaper reports say are currently unable to engage remote targets on land, but by British Air Force jets, who operated from Cyprus.

Parliamentary Secretary of State for Defense in London, James Heappey, said, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, that if the American aircraft carrier Eisenhower had to be replaced in the mission, then one of the Royal Navy carriers would be considered “if we were needed, to fill a gap in the presence of American forces.” Britain has two aircraft carriers – HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – some of which are equipped with American F35 fighter jets.