Iran says US ‘has never been so isolated’ defeat at UNSC to extend arms ban

Iran says the United States has “never been so isolated” in the UN’s 75-year history after Washington suffered a humiliating defeat at the Security Council as its resolution to extend an arms embargo on Tehran was overwhelmingly rejected.

In the 15-member UNSC vote on Friday, the US received support only from the Dominican Republic for its anti-Iran resolution, leaving it far short of the minimum nine “yes” votes required for adoption.

Russia and China voted against the resolution and the remaining 11 council members, including France, Germany and the UK, abstained.

“In the 75 years of United Nations history, America has never been so isolated,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi tweeted. “Despite all the trips, pressure and the hawking, the United States could only mobilize a small country (to vote) with them.”

He also noted that Iran’s “active diplomacy” and the “legal force” of the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), defeated the US at the Security Council.

In another post on his Twitter account, Mousavi advised the US administration to learn from its total failures and stop shaming itself at the United Nations.

The administration of US President Donald Trump had circulated its resolution to keep in place the UN arms embargo on the Islamic Republic, which is set to expire on October 18 under UNSC Resolution 2231 that enshrined the JCPOA.

Washington had threatened that if the resolution failed, it would try to trigger the so-called snapback of the UN sanctions, which had been in place against Iran prior to the nuclear deal’s inking.

This is while the US forfeited its right to invoke the provision in 2018, when it pulled out of the JCPOA.

UNSC vote ‘no to unilateralism’

Also on Friday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi took to Twitter to say the UNSC vote against the US proposal has a clear “message: No to UNILATERALISM.”

“The result of the vote in #UNSC on arms embargo against Iran shows – once more – the US’ isolation,” he tweeted.

“US must learn from this debacle. Its attempt to “snapback” sanctions is illegal, and was rejected by int’l community, as was evident today.”

Speaking to IRNA news agency, Ravanchi stressed that the Security Council’s vote demonstrated that Washington’s claims about the snapback mechanism was baseless.

“The Americans’ effort is a failed policy, from which they must learn a lesson. The policy has shown that they are isolated in the world and that even their closest partners have not sided with them,” he said.

The Americans “make bizarre arguments and say that JCPOA and Resolution 2231 are two different issues. Anyone with the least familiarity with international law, UN affairs and Security Council resolutions knows that the JCPOA is part of Resolution 2231,” he emphasized.

Iran’s UN envoy further said that the 2018 US withdrawal from the nuclear deal “was legally wrong, because implementing Resolution 2231 is a commitment of the US, not a Democrat government.”

He also thanked Moscow and Beijing for voting against the US resolution, saying their votes shows “the depth of friendship” between nations of Iran, Russia and China.  

Iran’s Ambassador to the UK said the United States was seeing tables being turned on Washington with its “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic.