The UN's maritime agency has condemned Iran for its “egregious attacks” on neighbouring countries and disruption of commercial shipping, which led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The proposal to condemn Tehran was drafted by UAE delegates to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) as it met for an emergency session on the situation in waterway.
It was backed on Thursday by more than 115 member states, the most co-sponsors for a proposal in the organisation’s history.
The declaration ordered Iran to “immediately refrain, in accordance with international law, from any actions or threats aimed at closing, obstructing or otherwise interfering with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz”.
It also called on member countries to ensure that water, food, fuel and other essential supplies were made available to ships currently unable to leave the region – where around 20,000 sailors are stranded at sea.
The IMO also agreed to call for the creation of a “safe maritime corridor” for merchant ships and for seafarers to be evacuated, and will meet again for another extraordinary session of the 40-person council in July.
Mohamed Khamis Saeed AlKaabi, permanent representative of the UAE to the IMO, welcomed the council declaration. He said on Thursday: “The council, and the international community as a whole spoke in clear terms today, to demand that Iran respect its obligations under international law and allow merchant and commercial vessels to navigate freely and safely through the Strait of Hormuz, an essential international waterway to energy supply and global economy.”
The channel connecting the Arabian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman has been closed for almost three weeks due to Iranian threats to attack ships attempting to pass through it with drones and naval mines.
As 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the strait, energy prices and fears of inflation have risen. Logistics companies are racing to change vessel destinations and move goods overland as the supply chain is disrupted.
The organisation's head, Arsenio Domingues, said work on the framework on establishing safe passage for evacuating ships would begin "next Monday", and that he would first be in touch with all the Gulf countries, including Iran, and then members of the shipping industry.
He declined to give a timeframe for the completion of the framework and the proposed evacuation, pointing to the logistical constraint that on a normal day, an average of 130 ships cross the strait.
"I will put a lot of effort into this, not to drag it. Because of course seafarers cannot be waiting for days on end here, but I do need some time to actually lay down a plan of how to make this a viable solution," he said. He said he had spoken personally to the Iranian delegation about establishing safe passage during the two-day session.
Establishing safe passage for evacuation was different to US proposals of providing naval military assistance for transiting ships to keep the flow of goods moving through the Straits. Mr Domingues described naval assistance as an "unsustainable" solution.
He acknowledged that some shipping routes could be altered to avoid the strait, but said that would still result in shortages in the world's oil and gas supply that comes from the Gulf.
He said he could not confirm reports that Iran had laid mines in the area. "I cannot confirm that because I don't have reliable sources of information that have confirmed that to us," he said.
It is the second time IMO has issued such condemnation of a member state, having done so over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Then the group called for a safe corridor for ships passing the Black and Azov seas.
Ukraine’s representative for the IMO, Yaroslav Moshkola, said the succession of crises in recent years has shown the organisation could not evade the political realities affecting shipping and seafarers.
“We’ve achieved our objectives,” he said of the IMO session. “The world is changing. We cannot speak any more about technical challenges.”
Though the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz could have been a “polarising” topic for the organisation, the move to agree to condemn Iran was unifying and widely accepted, one diplomat told The National.
Iran called the draft declaration “unfair, inaccurate and legally deficient”, its representative said. It did not recognise Tehran as a “victim” of the war and threatened to "politicise" the IMO without contributing to de-escalation.
