Russia, China veto UN resolution on reopening Strait of Hormuz

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 - 11-2, with two abstentions from Pakistan and Colombia- took place just hours before an 8 p.m. Eastern deadline set by U.S. 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. "Failing to adopt this resolution sends the wrong signal to the world, to the people of the world," Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Bahrain's foreign minister, said after the vote - "the signal that the threat to international waterways can pass without any decisive action by the international organization responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security."

It's doubtful the resolution introduced by Bahrain, even if it had been adopted, would have impacted the war, now in its sixth week, because it was been significantly weakened to try to get Moscow and Beijing to abstain rather than veto it.

The initial Gulf proposal would have authorized 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.

The United States, which had supported the draft from its original form, assailed the countries that objected to the resolution.

"No one should tolerate that they are holding the global economy at gunpoint," Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said of Iran, "but today, Russia and China did tolerate it." He said in his statement: "They sided with a regime that seeks to intimidate the Gulf into submission, even as it brutalizes its own people during a national internet blackout, for daring to imagine dignity or freedom."

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 authorized 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 authorization - 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 U.S. 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 neighbors, 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 U.S. Fifth Fleet and is the Security Council's Arab representative and its president this month, has been pressing for U.N. action.

At the same time, Trump on Monday demanded again that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz after heaping praise on the U.S. 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 U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and China's U.N. Ambassador Fu Cong have blamed the U.S. 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 neighbors, 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.

Associated Press