The U.S. attempt to restore sanctions on Iran might trigger a serious scandal at the UN Security Council and eventually undermine its authority, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV channel.
According to the transcript of the interview, posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, Lavrov expects the United States to try to restore international binding sanctions against Iran “by using legalistic, quasi-juridicial methods.”
“We are working with our U.S. partners and other Security Council members in New York and in capitals. We understand that the vast majority of nations realize the incorrectness and counter-productivity of this attempt. It will produce no result anyway, but it might eventually lead to a very serious scandal and a rift within the UN Security Council, and, in the final analysis, undermine its authority,” Lavrov said.
Russia’s top diplomat recalled that Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program by describing it as a ‘bad deal.’
“The thing is that one of the states behind the consensus resolution on Iran’s nuclear program announced that it would not comply with the obligations it had undertaken, but at the same time demanded that others follow its recommendations,” Lavrov said.
“[They] announced that no one can stop the United States when it would decide to punish Iran for allegedly violating the agreement from which the U.S. had withdrawn. Sounds paradoxical and quite clumsy, but this is how it is,” Lavrov said. “The U.S. declared that it would not comply with its obligations – not to impose new sanctions on Iran, to lift the existing restrictions and let the Islamic Republic of Iran to participate fully in international trade and economic exchanges. The United States said they were not going to do this and, what is more, will prohibit everyone else from doing this in relations with Iran.”
