UNSC members decry ‘illegal’ US triggering of snapback sanctions on Iran

“We urge the US not to act arbitrarily against the world's will. Otherwise, it will meet further opposition,” the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry tweeted on Friday.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF, OMRI NAHMIAS
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council about Iran's alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft listens at U.N. (photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR/POOL)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council about Iran's alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft listens at U.N.
(photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR/POOL)
Thirteen of the 15 United Nations Security Council members have refused to recognize the legality of a United States maneuver to abolish the Iran deal by triggering a formal process Thursday that would snap back UNSC sanctions against Tehran by September 19.
“We urge the US not to act arbitrarily against the world’s will. Otherwise, it will meet further opposition,” the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry tweeted on Friday.
China, and 12 other UNSC members, have already written letters to the UN opposing the move. These members include: Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Vietnam, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Indonesia, Estonia and Tunisia.
The Dominican Republic has yet to make its stance public. Earlier this month it was the only country, along with the United States, to support a move to extend the UNSC arms embargo against Iran, which runs out on October 18. A snapback of UNSC sanctions against Iran would also include an arms embargo.
“Our message is very, very simple: the United States will never allow the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons. These UN sanctions will continue the arms embargo,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters at the UN on Thursday.
He spoke after he and US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft formally submitted a request to snap back the sanctions.
“I’m pleased to say, too, that these restored sanctions will also reimpose accountability for other forms of Iranian malign activity that the authors of the nuclear deal foolishly downplayed. Iran will be again prohibited from ballistic missile testing. Iran will be back under sanctions for ongoing nuclear activities – such as the enrichment of nuclear material – that could be applied to a nuclear weapons program,” Pompeo said.
He charged that there was a disconnect between what some of the countries were saying privately and publicly.
“Our friends in Germany, France and the United Kingdom – the E3 – all told me privately that they don’t want the arms embargo lifted either,” Pompeo said.
“And yet today, in the end, they provided no alternatives, no options. No country but the United States had the courage and conviction to put forward a resolution. Instead, they chose to side with ayatollahs. Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of Syria – and indeed, their own citizens as well,” he said.
Pompeo explained that he had activated a clause in UNSC Resolution 2231 under whose terms the Iran sanctions were revoked in 2015, which allowed a UNSC member to snap back those sanctions due to Iranian non-compliance.
Iranian Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi told reporters in New York that the US had no legal standing to trigger the snapback mechanism and thus its actions in that regard were “null and void and has no legal standing.”
“The US wants to create a self-aggregated right, which does not exist. The US has no such right because it has officially ceased its participation in the JCPOA. In practice since May 2018 it has not participated in any JCPOA events or activities,” Ravanchi said.
Most of the UNSC members have said that the US has no legal standing to call for the snapback of sanctions because it withdrew from the Iran deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in 2018. There must also be a good-faith effort to resolve issues around compliance, they have explained.
According to UNSC Resolution 2331, if no council member has put forward a draft resolution to extend sanctions relief on Iran within 10 days of a non-compliance complaint, then the body’s president shall do so within the remaining 20 days.
The US would be able to veto this, giving it a cleaner argument that sanctions on Iran have to be reimposed.
However, according to Resolution 2231 the council would “take into account the views of the states involved.” Given the strong opposition, some diplomats say the council president – Indonesia for August and Niger for September – would not have to put up a draft text.
“Faced with this very strong view of a majority of Security Council members that the snapback process has not been triggered, as the presidency they are not bound to introduce the draft resolution,” said a UN Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pompeo and outgoing US Iran envoy Brian Hook signaled that Washington expects Indonesia or Niger to put a text to a vote. Another US option is to put forward the draft itself or ask the Dominican Republic to do so.
The US has argued that the 2015 Security Council resolution still names it as a nuclear deal participant.
However, in a joint letter to the Security Council on Thursday hours after the US submitted its complaint, Britain, Germany and France said: “Any decisions and actions which would be taken based on this procedure or on its possible outcome would also be devoid of any legal effect.”
The situation has created a form of legal chaos, whereby the UNSC could take no action, claiming that the US move was illegal, while the US could claim their inaction meant that the sanctions had snapped back.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres distanced himself from the showdown in the Security Council.
“Security Council members will need to interpret their own resolution,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. “It’s not the Secretary-General.”
The situation highlights the problems with the current structure of the UNSC, which often prevents it from effectively handling global crises.
The US elections have added pressure to the situation, the specter of a electoral loss in November for US President Donald Trump and with it the possibility that his replacement could revive the deal, has given its supporters renewed energy to keep it alive.
Three senior Iranian officials told Reuters this week Iran’s leadership is determined to remain committed to the nuclear deal, hoping that a victory by Trump rival Democrat Joe Biden in the November 3 US presidential election will salvage the pact.
Biden has said he would rejoin the deal if Iran first resumed compliance.
“If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement and build on it, while working with allies to push back on Iran’s destabilizing actions,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Reuters.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who heads the committee charged with resolving JCPOA disputes, also spoke out against the sanction snapback and in support of the deal.
“As coordinator of the JCPOA Joint Commission I will continue to do everything possible to ensure the preservation and full implementation of the JCPOA by all. The JCPOA remains a key pillar of the global non-proliferation architecture, contributing to regional security,” Borrell said.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the US in a special English language video he published less than an hour after Pompeo announcement that he had triggered the special mechanism to snap back the sanctions.
“Israel stands proudly and firmly with the United States, as do governments across the Middle East who opposed the JCPOA quietly and now support the restoration of sanctions publicly,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“Ultimately, the tyrants of Tehran must understand this: If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, it must start acting like a normal country. That has not yet happened.”
Netanyahu attacked the UNSC for not taking action on Iran and or extending the arms embargo.
 “The Security Council’s failure to act was a dereliction of its duty to protect international peace and security,” Netanyahu said as he referenced the US unsuccessful attempt to pass the arms embargo.
“Unchallenged, this failure effectively makes the Security Council complicit in arming Iran’s murderous regime. Fortunately, President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have refused to accept this,” Netanyahu said.
“Responsible countries should support the United States in seeking a real solution, one that will prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said.
In their letter to the UN, both Pompeo and Craft spoke of Iran’s non-compliance with the 2015 deal Tehran has signed with the six world powers; the US, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
“The United States makes this notification to the Council only after substantial efforts have been made by Member States to remedy Iran’s significant non-performance,” Pompeo and Craft noted in their letter to the security council. “Yet despite extensive efforts and exhaustive diplomacy on the part of those Member States, Iran’s significant non-performance persists. The United States is therefore left with no choice but to notify the Council that Iran is in significant non-performance of its JCPOA commitments,” they added.
The two mentioned Iran’s enrichment of uranium above the JCPOA’s limit of 3.67 and Iran’s accumulation of an enriched uranium stockpile “in excess of 300 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride or the equivalent in other chemical forms in non-performance of paragraph 7 of the JCPOA’s main text.”
“Iran’s conduct of uranium enrichment activities that are not in line with its long-term enrichment and enrichment research and development plan,” the US letter read.
This week the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief Rafael Grossi will make his first trip to Iran in his role as head of that organization, Iran’s ambassador to the agency said on Saturday as the two sides are in a standoff over access to two Iranian sites.
“We hope this visit will lead to reinforced mutual cooperation,” Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi, said, according to a statement posted by his mission on Twitter.
Reuters contributed to this report.


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