UN Security Council demands Houthis stop Red Sea shipping attacks

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding Yemen’s Houthis end attacks on ships in the Red Sea and free the Japanese-operated Galaxy Leader that was seized last year.

Eleven members of the council voted on Wednesday for the measure calling on the Iran-aligned Houthis to “immediately cease all attacks, which impede global commerce and navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace”.

Four countries, including Russia, China and Algeria, abstained.

Earlier, the UNSC rejected three Russian proposals to amend the text of the draft resolution, including the one that mentioned the conflict between Palestine and Israel as the reason behind the recent escalation in the Red Sea.

The document, authored by the United States and Japan, "condemns in the strongest terms" the Houthi attacks on commercial vessels since last November and demands that Yemen’s Houthis immediately end their attacks.

Meanwhile, Russia had proposed adding the phrase "in particular, the conflict in the Gaza Strip" to the provision that calls for the need to "address the primary reasons, including conflicts that increase regional tensions."

 The latest resolution condemning the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea that was adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) cannot be viewed as legitimizing actions by the Washington-led coalition, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a UNSC meeting.

"We would like to stress once again that this resolution cannot be viewed as legitimizing actions in the Red Sea by the so-called coalition made up of the United States and its satellites," he said.

According to Nebenzya, the United States and its allies "cobbled together the so-called international coalition primarily consisting of US ships that should allegedly ensure security, while, in effect, the legitimacy of its actions raises some very serious questions in terms of international law."

"We regret that, despite insistent demands by quite a number of delegations, including Arab representatives, the document has no mention of the deplorable situation in the Gaza Strip as the genuine primary reason behind the instability in the Red Sea," the Russian envoy said.

The head of Yemen's Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said on Thursday the UN resolution on navigation on the Red Sea is a "political game" and that the United States was the one violating international law.