(Updated below) The IAEA voted today 25-3 to censure Iran for defying a United Nations Security Council ban on uranium enrichment, and demanded that Iran cease further enrichment at its once-secret enrichment plant outside of Qom.
The full text of the resolution isn't yet available on the IAEA Web site; we'll post a link as soon as it goes up.
Today's vote is getting a lot of attention because both Russia and China voted in favor of the resolution. The Guardian suggests that it "could form the basis for a future binding resolution by the UN security council, which in turn could be used to impose sanctions." And Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, said the resolution signaled that "the world's patience is running out."
Let's not overstate the importance of Russian and Chinese support for the censure resolution, though. There's a big difference between voting "yes" on today's resolution -- embarrassing for Iran, but without any real consequences -- and endorsing the economic sanctions proposed by U.S. president Barack Obama earlier this month.
Russia and China are both extremely reluctant to sanction Iran, and I don't think today's vote signals that they've changed their minds.
Iran didn't react well to the censure vote: Iranian media are calling it an anti-Iran resolution, and Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, warned the world body not to use "the language of force."
The Iranian envoy added that a draft resolution tabled at the IAEA's Board of Governors meeting in Vienna would be counterproductive. "Resolutions, sanctions and threats have always made the issue more complicated," Soltanieh said.
The vote came hours after outgoing IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei -- speaking in usually blunt language -- said his investigation into Iran's nuclear program has reached "a dead end" because the Iranian regime is not cooperating. He also criticized Iran for not accepting the draft IAEA deal proposed earlier this month.
Update, November 28, 8:41 a.m.: The full text of the resolution is available on the IAEA Web site (pdf).
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Categories: Diplomacy, Iran, Politics, Proliferation, Regional News
Tags: Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Barack Obama, economic sanctions, IAEA, Iranian nuclear program, Mohamed ElBaradei, Qom facility
1 Comment
Iranian government isn't going to go ahead with a nuclear deal until it gets the S-300 from Russia. It has enough missiles of its own all over the place and is spending money on copying the S-300 specs for future rocket production. So it doesn't really need the S-300 although it would be nice. But the government needs some kind of diplomatic breakthrough to back down on the nuclear issue, otherwise it would do anything. Iran is inured to sanctions and both Russia and China need it as a trading partner, in particular since the US is just 'giving it away' to them.
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