By David Brunnstrom
China and Russia on Tuesday vetoed a UN resolution encouraging states to co-ordinate efforts to protect commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, calling the measure biased against Iran, while Washington’s ambassador to the world body called on “responsible nations” to join the US in securing the waterway.
The 15-member Security Council voted 11 in favour of the resolution presented by Bahrain, with two against — China and Russia — and two abstentions by Pakistan and Colombia.
US President Donald Trump threatened that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” as Iran showed no sign of accepting his ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening, Washington time.
Oil prices have surged since the US and Israel struck Iran at the end of February, unleashing a conflict that has run for more than five weeks while Tehran has largely closed the strait that was previously the route for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas.
“The draft resolution has not been adopted, owing to the negative vote of a permanent member of the Council,” Bahrain’s foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani said.
Al Zayani, speaking on behalf of the oil-exporting Gulf countries, said the failure to pass the resolution “sends the wrong signal to the world”.
“This signal that the threat to international waterways can pass without any decisive action by the international organisation responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security,” he said.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, condemned the Russian and Chinese vetoes, saying they marked “a new low” when Iran’s shutting of the strait was preventing medical aid and supplies reaching humanitarian crises in the Congo, Sudan and Gaza.
“No-one should tolerate that. They are holding the global economy at gunpoint. But today, Russia and China did tolerate it. They sided with a regime that seeks to intimidate the Gulf into submission, even as it brutalises its own people.”
Waltz said Iran could choose “to reopen the strait, to seek peace and to make amends”.
He added, “But until then and afterwards, we call on responsible nations to join us in securing the Strait of Hormuz, protecting it, ensuring that it remains open to lawful commerce, to humanitarian goods and the free movement of the world’s goods.”
France deplored the vetoes.
“The aim was to encourage strictly, purely defensive measures to provide the security and safety for the Strait without spiralling towards escalation,” its UN ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, said.
Text ‘biased’
Russia and China said the resolution was biased against Iran, and China’s UN envoy Fu Cong said adopting such a draft when the US was threatening the survival of a civilisation would have sent the wrong message.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said Russia and China were proposing an alternative resolution on the situation in the Middle East, including maritime security.
Iran’s UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani praised the Chinese and Russian moves, saying “their action today prevented the Security Council from being misused to legitimise aggression”.
Iravani added that the UN secretary-general’s personal envoy was en route to Tehran to pursue consultations.
China and Russia used their vetoes even though Bahrain had significantly weakened its draft after China opposed authorising force.
The draft submitted to a vote dropped any authorisation of the use of force. An explicit reference to binding enforcement, included in an earlier draft, was also left out.
Instead, the text strongly encouraged states “to co-ordinate efforts, defensive in nature, commensurate to the circumstances, to contribute to ensuring the safety and security of navigation across the Strait of Hormuz”.
It also said such contributions could include “the escort of merchant and commercial vessels” and endorsed efforts “to deter attempts to close, obstruct or otherwise interfere with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz”.
• This article has been updated with new information.
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