UN council rejects US demand to `snap back’ Iran sanctions

The president of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration’s demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, a move that drew an angry rebuke from the U.S. ambassador who accused opponents of supporting “terrorists.”

Indonesia’s ambassador to the U.N., Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating council presidency, made the announcement in response to requests from Russia and China to disclose the results of his polling of the views of all countries on the 15-member council.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted last Thursday that the United States has the legal right to “snap back” U.N. sanctions, even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

All the council members, except the Dominican Republic, had informed the council president that the U.S. administration’s action was illegal because Trump withdrew in 2018 from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Council president Djani told members at the end of a virtual meeting on the Mideast on Tuesday: “Having contacted the members and received letters from many member countries it is clear to me that there is one member which has a particular position on the issues, while there are significant numbers of members who have contesting views.”

“In my view there is no consensus in the council,” Djani said. “Thus, the president is not in the position to take further action.“

That means the U.N.’s most powerful body, at least during Indonesia’s presidency, is not going to take up the U.S. demand. Niger takes over the council presidency in September, and its ambassador also sent a letter calling the U.S. action illegal. So it is likely to ignore the U.S. demand as well.

The U.S. mission to the U.N. later issued a statement saying the U.S. “is on firm legal ground to initiate the restoration of sanctions” under the Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal.

“The fact that some council members expressed disagreement with our legal position in an informal VTC (virtual meeting) does not have any legal effect,” the mission said.

Pompeo came to the United Nations after the Security Council resoundingly rejected a U.S. resolution to indefinitely extend the U.N. arms embargo on Iran, which is set to expire on Oct. 18, with only the Dominican Republic supporting the United States.

U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft on Tuesday repeated Pompeo’s message: “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 ... (or) to have a nuclear weapon.”

Craft accused the council of lacking “courage and moral clarity” and accused Iran of defying the arms embargo and “fomenting conflict and murder throughout the world as it supplies weapons to proxy militias and terrorist groups.”

“The Trump administration has no fear in standing in limited company in this matter in light of the unmistakable truth in guiding our actions,” she said. “I only regret that the other members of this council have lost their way and now find themselves standing in the company of terrorists.”