Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani told the council on Thursday that he hopes for a vote on Friday on the resolution Bahrain has drafted to protect commercial shipping in and around the strait.
"We look forward to a unified position from this esteemed Council during the vote that will take place on the draft resolution tomorrow, God willing," Al Zayani said, calling Iran's retaliation to the US-Israeli strikes an "unlawful and unjustified attempt to control international navigation" in the Strait of Hormuz and a threat to global interests requiring a decisive response.
The deliberations in the UNSC over the fate of Hormuz come as the US and Israel escalate their five-week war on Iran, while Tehran continues to block all ships affiliated with the American-Israeli war on the country from passing through the strait, sending energy prices and inflationary pressures soaring globally.
Arab Gulf states and other states have been pushing to include authorization for countries to use military force if necessary to reopen the strait.
Diplomats said Russia and China opposed various initial drafts, arguing that language authorising “all necessary means” could legitimize military action. Both countries, which maintain close ties with Iran, criticized the text as one-sided and said it failed to address the broader causes of escalating tensions in the Middle East.
The original proposal, backed by Gulf Arab states and the United States, and seen by Reuters, explicitly invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows the Security Council to authorize measures including sanctions and the use of force. Diplomats said that if it had been included in a resolution, the measure would likely have faced a veto from Moscow or Beijing.
In a revised draft now under negotiation, Bahrain removed the explicit reference to Chapter VII but retained language authorising “all necessary means commensurate with the circumstances.”
The draft would authorize states, acting individually or through voluntary multinational naval coalitions, to use “all necessary means commensurate with the circumstances” in the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman to ensure passage and prevent interference with international navigation, including within or near territorial waters.
It also encourages countries that rely on these maritime routes to coordinate defensive efforts, including escorting commercial vessels.
The meeting comes as Tehran continues to block all ships affiliated with the US and Israeli war on the country from passing through the straits, sending energy prices and inflationary pressures soaring globally.
According to the New York Times, the council was scheduled to convene at 10 am New York time on Thursday to vote on the revised resolution.
Meanwhile, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Thursday, citing Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy minister of legal and international affairs, that Iran and Oman, whose coasts border the Strait of Hormuz, are drafting a protocol to monitor ship transit.
Gharibabadi said the traffic would be “supervised and coordinated” between the two countries and designed “not to mean restrictions, but rather to facilitate and ensure safe passage and provide better services to ships that pass through this route.”
It follows an approval on Monday by an Iranian parliamentary commission to impose tolls on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, according to State TV.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Anna Evstigneeva, told UAE state-owned The National that Moscow was seeking a resolution that addressed the crisis “comprehensively, including its root causes,” rather than what she called “a one-sided and unbalanced approach.”
Bahrain’s UN ambassador, Jamal Fares Alrowaiei, who took over the presidency of the 15-member Security Council for April, told reporters in New York on Wednesday that the GCC states cannot “accept that the situation remains as is.”
“We cannot accept economic terrorism affecting our region and the world, and the whole world is being affected by this development. This resolution is of paramount importance, and it comes at a critical juncture,” he said. “We hope it would be adopted as soon as possible.”
Separately, the United Arab Emirates has called on the UN to authorize a range of measures to reopen the vital waterway. In a letter dated Tuesday to the UN Secretary-General and the president of the Security Council, Mohamed Abushahab, the UAE’s ambassador to the UN, asked the council to take “immediate action” to “ensure the safe and secure navigation and navigational rights and freedoms in and around the Strait of Hormuz.”
The UN’s Chapter Seven, which the UAE cited in its letter, allows the Security Council to address threats to peace or acts of aggression by authorizing the use of force or other measures, including economic blockades and severing diplomatic ties.
On Thursday, Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Al-Budaiwi said the bloc “strongly condemns Iranian attacks, a flagrant violation of sovereignty of GCC states and the principles of good neighborly relations.”
“Targeting civilian and civilian assets is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and cannot be justified under any circumstances,” he said.
Al-Budaiwi added that the GCC “reaffirms urgent need to immediately halt these attacks, ensuring safety of air and maritime navigation, safety of international supply chains,” and said the Security Council “needs to issue resolution that allows use of all necessary measures to allow safe navigation through Hormuz.”
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has reiterated his country's condemnation of US and Israeli strikes on Iran as "a violation of international law."
“The military attack launched by the United States and Israel against Iran was not authorised by the UNSC and clearly violated international law,” he told Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Thursday, according to CCTV.
Wang stressed that the Security Council should prevent escalation, not legalize unauthorized military actions.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron weighed in on Thursday as well, calling a military operation to “liberate” the Strait of Hormuz “unrealistic.”
Speaking in South Korea, Macron said such an operation “would take an inordinate amount of time and would expose anyone crossing the strait to coastal threats from the (Iranian) Revolutionary Guards, who possess significant resources, as well as ballistic missiles, (and) a host of other risks.”
He added that “this can only be done in concert with Iran,” and called for a ceasefire and resumption of negotiations.
Macron also criticized US President Donald Trump for sending conflicting messages on the conflict, saying, “You have to be serious. When you want to be serious, you don’t say the opposite every day of what you said the day before.”
Short link: