Russia blocked a resolution at the U.N. Security Council Monday that would have pressured Iran over the illegal use of Iranian-made missiles by Houthi insurgents in Yemen. The Russian veto drew angry rebukes from the United States and its allies.
The resolution, which would have easily passed the 15-member council, also had been intended to renew an expiring U.N. arms embargo against the Houthis and the mandate of a panel of experts that found Iran had violated it.
Despite the rancor over that resolution, which was drafted by Britain and strongly backed by the United States, the council then unanimously approved a Russian-drafted resolution that renewed the embargo and the panel’s mandate. That resolution conspicuously avoided the issue of Iranian weapons in Yemen.
The United Nations has called the nearly 3-year-old civil war in Yemen the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster. Millions of Yemenis have been displaced, a majority of the population lacks food and aid agencies have struggled to supply assistance.
A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Houthis since March 2015 in an effort to expel them from areas they have seized from the Saudi-backed government, including the capital, Sanaa. The conflict is widely seen as part of a broader power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which supports the Houthis.
Iran has denied providing military aid to the Houthis. But the U.N. panel of experts found in January that missiles fired by the Houthis into Saudi Arabia, including one that landed near the capital, Riyadh, appeared to have been manufactured in Iran.
Security Council diplomats struggled unsuccessfully to reach a compromise over the Russian objections to Britain’s draft, which identified Iran as an embargo violator.
Jonathan Allen, Britain’s deputy ambassador, told reporters that the draft had conveyed “the very serious concerns” relayed by the panel of experts and had made clear “Iranian noncompliance” with the embargo.
The Russians have said the evidence of Iran’s malfeasance is inconclusive. Iran has described the evidence as a fabrication concocted by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.