United Nations | Russia and China on Tuesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz that had been repeatedly watered down in hopes those two countries would abstain.
The vote — 11 in favour, two against and two abstentions — took place just hours before an 8 pm Eastern deadline set by US President Donald Trump for Iran to open the strategic waterway or face attacks on its power plants and bridges. One-fifth of the world's oil typically passes through the strait, and Iran's stranglehold during the war has sent energy prices soaring.
It's doubtful the resolution, even if it had been adopted, would have impacted the war, now in its fifth week, because it was been significantly weakened to try to get Russia and China to abstain rather than veto it.
The initial Bahrain proposal would have authorised countries to use “all necessary means” — UN wording that would include military action — to ensure transit through the Strait of Hormuz and deter attempts to close it.
After Russia, China and France, all veto-wielding countries on the 15-member Security Council, expressed opposition to approving the use of force, the resolution was revised to eliminate all references to offensive action. It would have authorised only “all defensive means necessary.” A vote had been expected on Saturday.
But instead the resolution was further weakened to eliminate any reference to Security Council authorisation — which is an order for action — and limit its provisions to the Strait of Hormuz. Previous drafts had included adjacent waters.
The resolution vetoed Tuesday "strongly encourages states interested in the use of commercial maritime routes in the Strait of Hormuz to coordinate efforts, defensive in nature, commensurate with the circumstances, to contribute to ensuring the safety and security of navigation across the Strait of Hormuz.”
This should include escorting merchant and commercial vessels, and deterring attempts to close, obstruct or interfere with international navigation through the strait, it says.
The resolution also demanded that Iran immediately halt attacks on merchant and commercial vessels and stop impeding their freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian infrastructure.
In response to the US and Israeli attacks beginning on Feb. 28, Iran has targeted hotels, airports, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in more than 10 countries, including the Islamic Republic's Gulf neighbours, some of the world's major exporters of oil and natural gas.
Iran's blockade in the strait is seen by Gulf nations as an existential threat. Bahrain, a Gulf nation that hosts the US Fifth Fleet and is the Security Council's Arab representative and its president this month, has been pressing for UN action.
At the same time, Trump on Monday demanded again that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz after heaping praise on the US military for the daring rescue of two crewmen of a fighter jet shot down in Iran. The Republican president warned Iran that the "entire country can be taken out in one night, and that might be tomorrow night.”
He repeated the warning on Tuesday, saying a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not meet his deadline to agree to a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and China's UN Ambassador Fu Cong have blamed the US and Israel for starting the war and sparking an expanding global crisis. They told the Security Council last week that the most urgent priority now is to end military operations immediately.
In response to Iran's strikes against its Gulf neighbours, the Security Council adopted a Bahrain-sponsored resolution on March 11 condemning the “egregious attacks” and calling for Tehran to immediately halt its strikes.
That resolution, adopted by a vote of 13-0 with Russia and China abstaining, also condemned Iran's actions in the Strait of Hormuz as a threat to international peace and security and called for an immediate end to all actions blocking shipping.
United Nations | UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is “deeply troubled” by US President Donald Trump’s warning to Iran that a “whole civilization will die tonight” while he also appealed for freedom of navigation to be re-established in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The secretary-general is deeply troubled by statements suggesting that entire civilian populations or civilizations may be made to bear the consequences of political and military decisions," a statement issued Tuesday by his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.
"There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale destruction of a society's infrastructure or the deliberate infliction of suffering on civilian populations,” he added.
The statement however did not mention Trump or the US by name.
The statement came in response to a concerning Truth Social post by Trump in which the US president declared, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?
“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!” Trump said in the post early Tuesday.
Guterres reiterated that conflicts end when leaders choose dialogue over destruction. “That choice still exists. And it must be made -- now.”
The UN chief called for stepped-up diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful path forward. His personal envoy, Jean Arnault, is travelling to the region to support these efforts.
Guterres simultaneously also appealed for freedom of navigation to be re-established in the Strait of Hormuz, stressing that “when the Strait of Hormuz is strangled, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable cannot breathe”.
Just hours after Trump’s post, the UN Security Council failed to adopt a Bahrain-led resolution on re-opening the Strait of Hormuz after veto-wielding permanent members Russia and China voted against the resolution.
The resolution got 11 votes in favour and abstentions by Colombia and Pakistan.
The UAE expressed “profound regret” at the Security Council's inability to adopt the resolution that had called for an immediate halt to all attacks on vessels and attempts to obstruct freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Strait of Hormuz must remain open to all, and freedom of navigation in it must be safeguarded, as no state should possess the ability to obstruct the arteries of global trade or push the world to the brink of an economic crisis,” the Mission said in a post on X.
The UAE said it will continue to rally international efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and to work with its partners to ensure the security of navigation and restore the flow of global trade.
US Representative to the UN Ambassador Mike Waltz said in the Council that it is long known that Russia and China are capable of paralysing the Council through obstruction and manufactured confusion.
“Today's veto marks a new low, and it shows just how frightening a safer, more secure, more united Middle East can be…I will note today's result does not restrict the United States to continue to act in its own self-defence and in the collective defence of our allies and partners. And President Trump will continue the actions necessary to defend our people and the free world,” he said.
