World leaders have started to offer their support to Gulf countries as the US war with Iran continues.
The majority of the aid is coming in the shape of defensive equipment rather than aggresive.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday that “military assets” had been deployed to the Middle East as a contingency plan.
Countries have rushed to evacuate their citizens from the Middle East this week after US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and sparked a regional war.
Albanese told the Australian parliament the government had sent six crisis response teams to the region.
“And we’ve already deployed military assets as part of our contingency planning earlier this week,” he said.
“I thank those Australians going into a dangerous situation in order to help their fellow Australians,” he added.
The Australian leader did not give further details about the nature of the assets, though local outlet SBS News reported they were planes.
AFP contacted Albanese’s office and the Australian defense ministry for further information.
Australia has said it has 115,000 citizens in the region.
New Zealand also ordered two military aircraft to the Middle East on Thursday in preparation for evacuations of its citizens from the region.
Elsewhere Spain has said it will send its most advanced frigate to protect Cyprus after a drone strike on a British base on the Mediterranean island sucked it into the Middle East war, the defence ministry said on Thursday.
The "Cristobal Colon" will join French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle" and Greek navy ships to "offer protection and aerial defence" and "support any evacuation of civilians", the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile Italy is planning to send air defence aid to Gulf countries, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday.
"Like the United Kingdom, France and Germany, Italy intends to send assistance to Gulf countries, specifically in the field of defence and in particular air defence," Meloni told radio station RTL 102.5.
"This is not only because they are friendly nations, but above all because tens of thousands of Italians live in the region and around 2,000 Italian troops are deployed there – people we want, and must, protect," she added.
While Nato has indicated that it won’t get involved in the fighting, Turkiye’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that a ballistic missile fired from Iran toward Turkish airspace after passing Syria and Iraq was destroyed by NATO air and missile defence systems over the eastern Mediterranean.
Iran later denied having fired on Turkiye, adding it respected the country’s sovereignty.
On Tuesday US President Trump called UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ‘uncooperative’, and slammed him as “not Winston Churchill” for not allowing British airbases to be used for attacks on Iran.
But the prime minister later said American planes could use bases in England and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to strike Iranian missile systems that are targeting British allies in the Middle East.
(With agencies)
