By David Brunnstrom
The US and western allies clashed with Russia and China on Thursday over Iran’s nuclear intentions as Washington sought to further justify the war it launched on Iran two weeks ago at the UN.
At a meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council, which is chaired this month by the US, Russia and China were unable to block a discussion about a committee established to oversee and enforce UN sanctions on Iran. They were overruled by 11 votes to 2, with two abstentions.
Addressing the council, US envoy to the UN Mike Waltz accused Moscow and Beijing of seeking to protect Tehran by blocking the work of the so-called 1737 Committee.
“All member states of the UN should be implementing an arms embargo against Iran, banning the transfer and trade of missile technology, and freezing relevant financial assets,” Waltz said.
“The UN provisions to be reimposed are not arbitrary, but instead narrowly scoped to address the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programmes and Iran’s ongoing support for terrorism.”
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Waltz said China and Russia did not want a functional sanctions committee “because they want to protect their partner, Iran, and continue to maintain defence co-operation that is now once again prohibited”.
Waltz pointed out that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had reiterated last week that Iran was the only country without nuclear weapons to have produced and accumulated uranium enriched up to 60%, and had refused to provide the IAEA access to that stockpile.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said the US and its allies had “whipped up hysteria surrounding supposed plans Iran had to get a nuclear weapon” that were never corroborated by IAEA reports.
“This was done to undertake yet another military venture against Tehran and to ensure a great escalation of the situation in the Middle East and beyond,” he said.
China’s representative, Fu Cong, said Washington was the “instigator” of the Iranian nuclear crisis, adding that it had “resorted to blatant use of force against Iran during the negotiation process, which rendered diplomatic efforts futile”.
Nuclear programme
Britain and France told the security council that reimposing sanctions on Iran was justified by Tehran’s failure to address concerns about its nuclear programme.
France said the IAEA was no longer able to guarantee the peaceful nature of the programme, and Tehran’s nuclear stockpile was sufficient for 10 nuclear devices.
US President Donald Trump has used Iran’s nuclear programme to justify his war on Iran. He said this month that Iran would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks had the US not struck three sites in June, a claim sources say is not supported by US intelligence assessments.
