United Nations – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to approve a resolution that bans all Iranian arms exports and freezes some of the financial assets of 28 Iranian individuals and entities linked to Iran’s military and nuclear agencies.
The 15-0 vote came one day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled plans to travel to New York to confront the Security Council, leaving his foreign minister to speak in his place.
The 15-nation panel imposed the latest sanctions in response to Iran’s refusal to abide by repeated U.N. demands to stop its most sensitive nuclear activities, including the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
The council also threatened to impose new penalties on Tehran after 60 days if it fails to stop its nuclear activities and provide verifiable assurance that it is not secretly pursuing a nuclear weapon.
The measures adopted Saturday fell far short of the punishing trade, travel and military sanctions initially proposed by the U.S. and its European partners, but they said they were pleased with the outcome.
“We got more than we thought we were going to get” in this resolution, said Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs. He also said it criminalizes Iran’s military support for Mideast extremists and exposes its political isolation.
Iran Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the council after the vote that its action was “unlawful, unnecessary and unjustifiable” and that “pressure and intimidation” would not force Iran to abandon its right, under the 1970 Nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty, to develop nuclear energy.
After the vote, the council’s five permanent members – the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China – deplored Iran’s “failure” to comply with U.N. resolutions but reiterated an offer to talk to Iran to resolve the nuclear standoff.
