UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council unanimously voted Saturday to impose
new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium -- a
move that is leaving it increasingly isolated.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, center, is
followed by Iranian Ambassador to the UN Javad Zarif, left, as he arrives
to address members of the Security Council after a vote to expand
sanctions against Iran Saturday, March 24, 2007 at the United Nations
headquarters. [AP]
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The moderately tougher sanctions include banning Iranian arms exports, and
freezing the assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran's nuclear
and missile programs.
About a third of those are linked to the Revolutionary Guard, an elite
military corps.
The United States is "very pleased by the strength of this resolution" after
two years of diplomacy, said R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political
affairs at the State Department.
In December, the 15-member Security Council ordered all countries to stop
supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its
nuclear and missile programs. It also ordered a freeze on assets of 10 key
Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.
"It's a significant international rebuke to Iran and it's a significant
tightening of international pressure on Iran," Burns said of the new sanctions.
"We do believe it's going to leave Iran even more isolated than it has been."
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki rejected the sanctions and said
Iran had no intention of suspending its enrichment program.
"The world must know -- and it does -- that even the harshest political
and economic sanctions or other threats are far too weak to coerce the Iranian
nation to retreat from their legal and legitimate demands," Mottaki told the
Security Council after the vote. "Suspension is neither an option nor a
solution."
Mottaki made the trip instead of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who
claimed he canceled his appearance because the US failed to deliver his visa in
time. The US said it had issued the visa promptly.
Raising tensions, Iran detained 15 British sailors and marines Friday in what
it said were Iranian territorial waters near Iraq. The British sailors and
marines had been on a mission to search for smugglers in Iraqi waters.
The six world powers that drafted the new resolution spent Friday trying to
overcome objections from several council members, reflecting concerns that
anything short of consensus would weaken efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear
defiance.
There were several minor concessions but no changes to the key sanctions
agreed upon last week by the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and
Germany.
The new sanctions -- already a compromise between the stronger measures
favored by the United States and the Europeans and the softer approach advocated
by Russian and China -- are considered modest. The ban on exports is among
the harshest measures, but many of Iran's arms sales may not be affected because
they are illicitly sent to militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and Shiite
militias in Iraq.
Still, world powers hoped that approving the resolution quickly and
unanimously would signal that Iran will face stricter sanctions each time it
ignores a Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, a process
that can be used to produce nuclear energy or nuclear weapons.
"This resolution sends an unambiguous signal to the government and people of
Iran ... that the path of nuclear proliferation by Iran is not one that the
international community can accept," said British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.
Iran responded to the first set of sanctions in December by expanding
enrichment.
Tehran has offered to provide guarantees that its nuclear program won't be
diverted toward weapons, as the US and some of its allies fear.
Iranian leaders kept up their defiant rhetoric in the days leading up to the
vote, with Ahmadinejad calling the Security Council illegitimate and Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggesting Iran would pursue nuclear activities
outside international regulations if faced with more sanctions.
The new resolution calls for voluntary restrictions on travel by the
individuals subject to sanctions, on arms sales to Iran, and on new financial
assistance or loans to the Iranian government.
It asks the International Atomic Energy Agency to report back in 60 days on
whether Iran has suspended enrichment and warns Iran could face further measures
if it does not. But it also says all sanctions will be suspended if Iran halts
enrichment and makes clear that Tehran can still accept a package of economic
incentives and political rewards offered last year if it complies with the
council's demands.
After the latest resolution met with surprising resistance from several
elected Security Council members, a reference was inserted to a past resolution
from the IAEA calling for the Middle East to be free of weapons of mass
destruction. Indonesia and Qatar had wanted the council to make that appeal
outright, but that would have had implications for Israel, a US ally widely
believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it has never officially acknowledged
it.