UN Security Council endorses Iran deal, Tehran diplomat lashes out at US
Monday the UN Security Council unanimously endorsed the Iran nuclear deal, though the show of support was interrupted shortly afterward by a war of words between the American and Iranian ambassadors. Iran’s ambassador lashed out at the U.S. mere moments after the vote, in retaliation for U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power bringing up Tehran’s human rights record.
Power had raised concerns about Iran’s support for terror proxies and reiterated a U.S. demand that Iran release all unjustly held American prisoners. Iran’s ambassador fired back, blaming the U.S. for instability in the region.
Iranian U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said a country that “invaded two countries” in the region should not be leveling such accusations against Iran.
The exchange, which came as Israel’s representative continued to assail the deal itself, hung over what was nevertheless the first formal step at the international body toward implementing the deal and rolling back U.N. sanctions.
The movement at the U.N. still faces resistance in Washington, where lawmakers had wanted the Security Council to wait until Congress formally reviews the landmark agreement. The White House says the Security Council’s actions won’t take effect for another 90 days, but congressional lawmakers had urged President Obama to halt Monday’s vote — and allow Congress to vote first.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Monday called it an “end-run around Congress.”
“I don’t know why they’re going to the United Nations [first],” Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.”
Congress has 60 days to review the deal — and then vote for or against it, or take no action.
The vote Monday authorizes a series of measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions that have hurt Iran’s economy. But the measure also provides a mechanism for U.N. sanctions to “snap back” in place if Iran fails to meet its obligations.
The resolution had been agreed to by the five veto-wielding council members, who along with Germany negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. It was co-sponsored, and approved, by all 15 members of the Security Council.
Following the endorsement, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor blasted the move.
“If the international community refuses to see this as a tragedy, that is a grave strategic error. But if it is aware of the tragedy, and it still chooses to purse this dangerous path, that is a catastrophe,” he said.
U.S. Ambassador Power, in remarks that drew the rebuke from Iran’s representative, said the nuclear deal doesn’t change the United States’ “profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region.”
She urged Iran to release three “unjustly imprisoned” Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.
Iran’s nuclear program will be curbed for a decade in exchange for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of relief from international sanctions. Many key penalties on the Iranian economy, such as those related to the energy and financial sectors, could be lifted by the end of the year.
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Well……Told You All So! No Deal, No Deal, And No Sweet Deals!