UN Security Council to Vote Wednesday on New Round of Iran Sanctions
Margaret Besheer | United Nations 08 June 2010
The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday morning on a fourth round of sanctions against Iran for its suspect nuclear program. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice says the resolution is a "very strong" one and that the United States is happy with it.
In the final push before a vote by the 15 members, Security Council president for the month of June, Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller, said the members had decided to hold a private debate on the issue of Iran's nuclear program Tuesday afternoon.
"This session will be closed in terms of participation to the members of the Security Council, but will be open to members of the United Nations. At the same time, the co-sponsors of a draft resolution on Iran have announced that the resolution will be submitted to a vote tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock," he said.
Council diplomats say that at such a session, all U.N. members can be present and listen. They can also request to speak. But it would be up to the council to grant them the right to participate.
The text of the resolution and its annexes designating individuals and entities was put into final form on Tuesday. Measures include travel bans and financial restrictions against individuals and entities designated to be involved in Iranian nuclear and/or ballistic missile activities. That list includes entities owned, controlled or acting on behalf of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran denies charges that its nuclear program is for anything other than peaceful purposes and it has warned that any new sanctions could mean the end of talks on the issue.
Council members Turkey and Brazil have been reluctant to support a new round of sanctions after their governments negotiated a deal in which Iran would send some of its uranium to Turkey in exchange for fuel to use in a Tehran research reactor.
Their ambassadors would not say how they planned to vote on Wednesday, but Brazilian Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti said she believes there is a lot of support for her government's position in the Security Council. She said she expects the larger U.N. membership will understand the "benefits and merits" of Brazil's position, which she will present at the private debate. "Now we need for the sake of transparency that the wider membership is also informed of the arguments, of the positions and the deliberations of the council," he said.
The United States sponsored the draft in the Security Council.
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