UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution Friday on whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, as European officials warn Tehran that time is running out to come to a diplomatic resolution ahead of next week’s annual United Nations gathering of world leaders.
The resolution put forth by South Korea, the current president of the 15-member council, would require at least nine votes to halt the sanctions from taking effect at the end of the month as outlined by Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Diplomats have indicated that, despite differing views, there is not enough support to avoid all sanctions against Iran without any conditions.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom moved last month to trigger the “ snapback mechanism,” which automatically reimposes all U.N. sanctions that were in effect before the nuclear deal. Those penalties included a conventional arms embargo, restrictions on ballistic missile development, asset freezes, travel bans and a ban on producing nuclear-related technology.
The process is designed to be veto-proof unless the U.N.’s most powerful body agrees to stop it.
Over the last several weeks, intensified diplomacy between Iran and the European countries has taken place, but without a resolution so far and indications that sanctions were likely.
When asked in an interview Thursday on Israel’s Channel 12 whether “snapback” was a done deal, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Yes, I think so because the latest news we had from the Iranians are not serious.”
German and European Union leaders had warned Iran in a call Wednesday that it had yet to take the necessary action to stop the reimposition of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which is already reeling from a 12-day war and a decades-long financial crisis.
“The window for finding a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear issue is closing really fast,” the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said in a statement. “Iran must show credible steps towards addressing the demands of France, U.K. and Germany, and this means demonstrating full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and allowing inspections of all nuclear sites without delay.”
In a statement issued hours later, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again asserted that the reimposition of U.N. sanctions was “lacking any legal or logical justification.”
He also pointed to the fact that Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog earlier reached a deal mediated by Egypt to grant the IAEA access to all Iranian nuclear sites and for Tehran to report on the whereabouts of all its nuclear material.
Details of the agreement were not immediately released. In an address last week to his agency’s board of governors in Vienna, IAEA Director Rafael Grossi said the document “provides for a clear understanding for the procedures of inspection notifications and their implementation.”
The agreement “includes all facilities and installations in Iran and it also contemplates the required reporting on all the attacked facilities including the nuclear material present at those,” Grossi added, noting it will “open the way for the respective inspections and access” without specifying when that would happen.
A 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in June saw both the Israelis and the Americans bomb Iranian nuclear sites, throwing into question the status of Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched nearly to weapons-grade levels.
Using the “snapback” mechanism will likely heighten tensions between Iran and the West. It’s unclear how Iran will respond, given that in the past, officials have threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, potentially following North Korea, which abandoned the treaty in 2003 and then built atomic weapons.
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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Stephanie Liechtenstein in Vienna contributed to this report.
