Qatar has formally rejected Iran's justification for attacks on its territory and reaffirmed its claim to full compensation, in two identical letters to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and to Jerome Bonnafont, the French permanent representative holding the Security Council's rotating presidency. The letters were delivered by Qatar's UN permanent representative, Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif al-Thani, in response to a communication from Iran's acting charge d'affaires [1]. Qatar's state news agency QNA reported the move.

The legal argument matters for the corridor. Doha says Tehran's repeated claims cannot provide a legal basis for the attacks, citing Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, and it invokes UN Security Council Resolution 2817 (2026), which it says strongly condemned Iran's attacks as a violation of international law and a serious threat to international peace and security [1]. Qatar argues that provisions of the UN General Assembly's 1974 definition of aggression — including bombardment of another state's territory and the blockade of ports or coasts — apply both to Iranian missile and drone attacks beginning on 28 February 2026 and to what the letters describe as "Iran's decision to close the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt maritime navigation" [1].

On navigation specifically, Qatar said Resolution 2817 explicitly affirmed the rights and freedoms of transport and commercial vessels under international law, and condemned any Iranian action or threat aimed at closing Hormuz, disrupting international navigation or otherwise interfering with maritime traffic, as well as threats to maritime security in the Bab Al Mandab Strait [1]. Doha renewed its call for Iran to respect freedom of navigation through the strait, which it called an established principle of customary and written international law, and rejected Iran's claims about the strait as a justification for threatening or attacking commercial vessels [1].

Qatar also rejected Iran's invocation of self-defence under Article 51, said it is still assessing and documenting damage to civilian infrastructure including energy facilities, tankers and commercial vessels, and reserved its right to respond proportionately [1]. It dismissed Iran's demand that Doha pay compensation as an attempt to reverse the parties' actual responsibilities [1].

These are Qatar's own characterisations, carried by its state news agency; no Iranian response appears in the report, and the letters do not change conditions in the strait itself. They do, however, put a Gulf state's account of the Hormuz closure into the formal UN record alongside the unresolved question of whether traffic is actually moving.