UN hits Iran with new sanctions

[1]

The UN Security Council on Wednesday slapped broader military and financial sanctions on Iran over its suspect nuclear programme, despite opposition from Brazil and Turkey.
The vote in the 15-member council was 12 in favour, with Lebanon abstaining and Brazil and Turkey voting against.
US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice immediately hailed the vote, saying: “The Council has risen to its responsibilities. Now Iran should choose a wiser course.”
Reacting to the news of imposition of new UN sanctions, Iran foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told state-owned Al-Alam television that sanctions imposed on Wednesday on Iran are an “incorrect step” and will “complicate” the situation more.
But Wednesday’s vote was delayed for more than an hour after the ambassadors of Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon, three non-permanent members council members, said they had to await instructions from their governments.
The three countries finally decided to attend the meeting, but insisted on speaking before the vote to register their opposition.
“We do not see sanctions as an effective instrument in this case,” Brazil’s UN ambassador Maria Luiza Viotti said.
The US-drafted resolution marked the fourth set of UN sanctions imposed on Iran since December 2006, as the international community has struggled in vain to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions.
Tehran maintains that its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful civilian purposes, while the Western nations have led accusations that it is seeking to develop an atomic weapon.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday called the sanctions “the most significant Iran has ever faced.”
But the Brazilian UN envoy said the sanctions would increase the suffering of the Iranian people, and highlighted that Brazil and Turkey had brokered a nuclear fuel swap deal with Tehran which offered a pathway to a negotiated settlement.
Under the deal worked last month, Tehran agreed to ship 1,200 kg of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for high-enriched uranium fuel for a Tehran research reactor that would be supplied later by Russia and France.
But the six powers trying to clip Iran’s nuclear ambitions — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — gave the deal a cool reception.
In addition to the draft resolution is a list of 40 companies to be added to an existing UN blacklist of firms whose assets around the world are to be frozen on suspicion of aiding Iran’s nuclear or missile programmes.