UNSC consensus once again proved US isolation

 

Tehran says the overwhelming consensus among members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) against the US’s push to reinstate all anti-Iran UN sanctions proves Washington’s isolation once again.

The Islamic Republic’s mission to the United Nations made the remarks in a statement on Tuesday, hours after the UNSC dismissed the controversial American bid because of a lack of consensus at the highest UN body over the so-called snapback of sanctions against Iran.

“Today, the overwhelming majority of the Security Council members rejected once again the admissibility of the recent letter” submitted by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “notifying” the council of Washington’s intention to “snap back,” or restore, all UN sanctions on Iran.

The statement reminded that “through individual or joint letters addressed to the Council’s President, 13 out of 15 members of the Security Council” as well as Iran “have already strongly refuted the legal merit of the US letter.”

The US’s push comes while it has lost the right to enable re-imposition of the sanctions due to its 2018 departure from a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and other countries — officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — that has been endorsed in the form of Security Council Resolution 2231.

The Iranian statement further said, “Given that the stated objective of the US is to destroy Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA, Iran trusts that the Council members will continue preventing that country from undermining the UN, including the Security Council.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Indonesia’s UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, the UNSC’s president for August, said at a meeting on the Middle East that the 15-nation body was “not in the position to take further action” on the new US push.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet later that the UNSC members had to use a meeting on the Middle East, not Iran, to refute the US attempt “as null and void” after Washington prevented a debate at the Council about its “unlawful notification” a day earlier. 

The new anti-Iran bid comes after the UNSC similarly snubbed a resolution drafted by the US to extend an arms embargo against Iran that will expire in October under the JCPOA.

 ‘US can’t hide behind smear campaigns’

The Iranian mission, meanwhile, pointed to the allegations that the United States has been using against Tehran in order to try and justify its anti-Iran campaigns throughout the world, including at the Security Council.

Washington ceaselessly accuses Iran of trying to “destabilize” the region and the world, alleging that the Iranian peaceful nuclear program features “diversion towards military purpose” with that end in mind.

“Regarding unfounded accusations against Iran raised in the Council meeting by the US, it must be stressed that almost all problems in the Middle East stem from the continued occupation of Palestine by the Israeli regime and its expansionist policies supported by the US, as well as the meddling, destabilizing policies and destructive practices of the United States, which cannot be covered up by no amount of smear campaign,” the mission said.