Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs has criticised a draft UN Security Council resolution on the Strait of Hormuz put forward by the US and other Gulf nations last week.
In a statement, Kazem Gharibabadi said the proposal was “a new effort to shift the terms of the issue: transforming the consequences of a military aggression and illegal siege into a case against a country that has been the target of threats, pressure, and attack”.
He claimed that “freedom of navigation” in the strait “cannot be interpreted selectively, politically, and detached from the United Nations Charter”.
Gharibabadi added that:
“Any text that seeks to frame the situation in the Strait of Hormuz without reference to aggression, siege, threats of force, and Iran’s legitimate rights to defend its security and vital interests will be flawed, biased, political, and doomed to failure from the outset.”
It comes after the US, along with Bahrain and other Gulf allies – including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar – drafted a resolution to the Security Council last week.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement that the proposed resolution “requires Iran to cease attacks, mining, and tolling” in the key waterway as well as a demand for Tehran to disclose the number and location of any sea mines and “cooperate with efforts to remove them”.
The resolution also stipulated that Iran would support the “establishment of a humanitarian corridor”.
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