United Nations – Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that the United Nations will never impose sanctions against Iran again, as requested by the United States, until it receives green approval from the Security Council.
The UN leader said in a letter to the president of the council received on Sunday via The Associated Press that “there appears to be uncertainty” as to whether US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo activated the “push-back” mechanism. in the Security Council solution that enshrines nuclear energy in 2015. agreement between Iran and six major powers.
Trump’s leadership said Saturday that all UN sanctions opposing Iran have been reinstated, a move that the rest of the globals reject as illegal and will likely be ignored. The US announcement will be moot at the annual high-level meetings of the UN General Assembly starting Monday, which are held mainly this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The US announcement came 30 days after Pompeo notified the board that the administration triggered a “pushback” because Iran was in “significant breach” of its obligations under the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
But the overwhelming majority of the 15-nation council finds U. S. action illegal.
They refer to Security Council Resolution 2231, which establishes the nuclear agreement. Sets that a “JCPOA player state” can cause the “backward” mechanism. The United States insists that, as an original player, you have the legal right, even if you have stopped participating.
Guterres noted in the letter that “the Security Council took a no after receiving the letter from the Secretary of State of the United States, neither from any of its members nor from its president. “
He said most board members wrote to the president “that the letter was not a notification” that triggered the snapback. And he said the board chair members for the months of August and September “have indicated that they are not in a position to take action on it. “
For this reason, Guterres said, “It is up to the Secretary-General to continue as if such uncertainty existed. “
The UN Secretariat, through Guterres, provides the Security Council in the implementation of sanctions, adding the creation of committees and teams trained to monitor their implementation, as well as websites on the nature of sanctions and lists of sanctions.
Guterres said the UN will not take any action “pending an explanation from the Security Council” as to whether or not the sanctions that have been lifted will be imposed again.
Under the snapback provision, UN sanctions at ease or lifted through the nuclear agreement are re-imposed and will have to be implemented through UN member states. acquisition or sale of traditional weapons.
The bans were lifted or the 2015 agreement in which Iran secured billions of dollars in sanction relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program was nearing expire.
China and Russia have been strong in rejecting America’s position, but America’s allies have also not been shy.
In a letter sent Friday to the President of the Security Council, Britain, France and Germany – the three European participants still committed to the agreement – they said the US announcement “is incapable of having a legal effect,” so it reprints the opposing sanctions. Iran.
Russia’s vice ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said the United States had turned away from itself. “It’s very painful to see a wonderful country humiliated in this way, it opposes in its cursed delusion the other members of the UN Security Council,” he wrote on Twitter.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who coordinates the JCPOA Joint Commission, reiterated that the United States cannot be “a state committed to the JCPOA and cannot initiate the procedure to reestablish the UN sanctions. ” As a result, he said, the sanctions remain lifted.
China’s UN project tweeted: “The unilateral announcement across the United States over the reverse of UN sanctions against Iran is devoid of any legal, political or practical effect. . . It’s time to end America’s political drama. “
In its own letter to the Security Council on Saturday, Iran said the U. S. resolution “is null and void, has no prestige or legal effect, and is absolutely unacceptable. “
The White House plans to include an executive order Monday specifying how the United States will enforce re-established sanctions, and the State and Treasury departments deserve how foreigners and businesses will be penalized for violations.
“The United States expects all UN member states to fully comply with their obligations to implement these measures,” Pompeo said. “If UN member states fail to meet their obligations to bring these sanctions into effect, the United States is ready to use our national government to impose the consequences of these mistakes and ensure that Iran does not realize the benefits of prohibited activities through the United Nations.
It is not yet clear how the leadership will react to ignorance, especially through its European allies, who have pledged to keep the nuclear agreement alive. A large rejection of the U. S. position can push the leadership, which has already withdrawn from several Agencies, Organizations and Treaties of the United Nations, more than the foreign community.