UN Security Council rejects last-ditch effort to delay Iran sanctions

Security Council votes against delaying reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

The United Nations Security Council has voted against a resolution drafted by Russia and China to delay by six months the reimposition of sanctions on Iran.

In a 4-9 vote, with two abstentions, world leaders on Friday opted to reimpose sanctions owing to Iran’s nuclear programme. The sanctions are set to snap back as of 8pm in New York on Saturday [00:00 GMT on Sunday].

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have accused Tehran of violating the 2015 deal geared to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Russian and Chinese diplomats on Friday pushed for the Security Council to delay the return of sanctions, but they failed to sway enough of the other members.

Russia’s deputy UN envoy, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told the chamber that Iran had done all it could to accommodate Europeans, but that Western powers had refused to compromise.

But Jerome Bonnafont, the permanent representative of France to the UN in New York, refuted that and said Iran had not taken any serious steps to avoid the renewal of sanctions.

Bonnafont added, however, that diplomacy should continue and that the reimposition of sanctions did not mean a negotiated settlement could not be reached later.

Reporting from the UN, Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays said, “It doesn’t look like there is going to be further negotiation. We had the opportunity all week here in New York for negotiations.”

But Bays noted that Iran knew the resumption of sanctions was likely. “The supreme leader in Iran said that he didn’t think there was going to be progress and that snapback was likely … I don’t think there is much more effort going into this now in terms of negotiation.”

The snapback sanctions will be layered atop the already tough Western sanctions in place against Iran.

“What we are talking about here are all the international sanctions, all the UN sanctions that were in place before 2015.”

This is a developing story. More details to follow.