Russia and China Fail to Delay U.N. ‘Snapback’ Sanctions Against Iran Over Nuclear Program

A last-minute attempt to delay “snapback” sanctions against Iran failed at the United Nations Security Council on Friday, after Tehran did not convince enough nations that it had scaled back its nuclear program.

The resolution, led by China and Russia, two allies of Iran, sought to delay the automatic re-imposition of the United Nations sanctions for six months, but the measure received only four votes in the 15-member Council. Among the nine countries that opposed putting off the sanctions were Britain, France and the United States.

The sanctions are due to go into effect at early on Sunday in Iran.

They include an embargo on conventional arms sales to Iran, restrictions on ballistic missile tests, asset freezes on key individuals involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, financial and banking restrictions and bans on uranium enrichment or reprocessing.

At the Security Council meeting in New York, European leaders said that while intensive diplomatic efforts had been made in recent days to get Iran to compromise, they did not believe that Iranian leaders were making concrete commitments.

“To our major regret, Iran has persisted in its attitude of refusal,” said Jérôme Bonnafont, France’s representative to the U.N. Iran had failed to commit to the effective resumption of cooperation with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog and to “shed light” of the location of its stock of enriched material, Mr. Bonnafort added.

Barbara Woodward, Britain’s representative to the U.N., also said: “We stand ready to continue discussions with Iran on a diplomatic solution. In turn, this could allow for the lifting of sanctions in the future.”

Iran has long claimed that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. “Iran has never sought or will never seek to build a nuclear bomb,” the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said at the United Nations General Assembly this week, reiterating remarks by the country’s supreme leader.

The U.N.’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had inspectors and cameras in Iran’s facilities up to the time the United States joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran and struck and badly damaged the sites in June. The watchdog has said it has found no evidence that Iran was weaponizing its program.

Designed to be veto-proof at the Security Council, the snapback mechanism expires on Oct. 18. After that, countries like China and Russia — both of whom have traded with Iran — could, theoretically, veto sanctions efforts against Tehran in the Security Council.

To get ahead of that deadline, Britain, France and Germany, known collectively as the E3, moved in late August to reimpose all the sanctions on Iran, accusing it of failing to comply with the terms of the 2015 agreement.

A letter co-signed by the three countries to the Security Council then said that Iran “has increasingly and deliberately ceased performing” its nuclear commitments, including by accumulating a “high enriched uranium stockpile” and ceasing to allow inspections by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.

In the same letter, the countries said that if Iran’s “significant nonperformance” were “resolved” before the 30-day deadline, they would alert the Security Council accordingly. The letter echoed talks in July, when European diplomats offered to delay snapping back sanctions if Iran met three conditions: resume nuclear negotiations with the United States; allow the U.N. nuclear watchdog to conduct inspections on its nuclear sites; and account for its highly enriched uranium stockpile.

At the Security Council meeting on Friday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, maintained that Iran has been “lawful, gradual, and fully consistent” with the 2015 nuclear agreement. “Iran categorically rejects weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons,” Mr. Araghchi said.

Geng Shuang, China’s representative at the meeting, called the current situation “precarious” but noted that Iran has “repeatedly sent positive signals of readiness to resume talks with the United States. He said delaying sanctions would create “more time for diplomatic efforts” to reach a solution.

The U.N. would be following the United States in renewing economic pressure.

In 2018, President Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement, saying it gave Iran a windfall of cash to fund a military buildup while allowing it to preserve nuclear development and research.

Mr. Trump unilaterally reimposed extensive U.S. sanctions on Iran and pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign to choke Tehran’s economy and prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.