France readies UN resolution on Hormuz as vote on US text stalls

By John Irish

PARIS, May 21 (Reuters) – France has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution on setting up an international mission to restore movement in the Strait of Hormuz and could submit it if conditions are right, the foreign ministry said on Friday, as Washington struggles to bring to a vote a text Russia and China may say is biased against Tehran.

Control of the narrow waterway, a vital artery for global energy trade whose virtual closure has led to spiralling oil prices, is a major obstacle in talks to end the three-month-old U.S.-Iran war.  

A U.S.-Bahraini resolution on the strait has been under discussion for more than two weeks, with a vote repeatedly delayed as China and Russia signal they could veto it.

The U.S.-Bahraini draft resolution demands Iran halt attacks and mining in the strait. China and Russia vetoed a similar U.S.-backed text in April, arguing it was biased against Tehran.

Washington has secured almost 140 countries to co-sponsor its text in the hope of avoiding a veto, two European diplomats said. 

France, another veto-wielding power, has so far refused to back the U.S. text.

“There is a draft resolution between the U.S. and Bahrain currently under discussion. This forms the basis of the current discussions. The date for the vote has not yet been announced,” France’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has said Paris would soon push an initiative at the UN as it looks to cement Franco-British efforts to put together an international mission to restore freedom of navigation in the strait once the situation permits and after consultation with Washington and Tehran.

“We are working on an international mission to restore freedom of navigation. We have also prepared, as a permanent member, a draft resolution that could be discussed if the conditions are right,” Confavreux said.

The U.S. diplomatic push at the United Nations is in stark contrast to recent months during which it has largely acted outside the U.N. framework, launching military strikes against Iran without seeking council authorisation and pressing allies to join ad hoc naval patrols to enforce freedom of navigation.

(Reporting by John Irish)