Russia and China have vetoed a United States-backed resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would have authorised UN experts to continue monitoring sanctions on Iran. The resolution was shut down on Thursday.
The resolution would have extended the mandate for independent monitoring of sanctions that were reimposed last year after Western powers accused Iran of violating the 2015 nuclear pact. Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons or violating the agreement. In 2025, the Security Council reinstated an independent panel of experts to monitor and report on sanctions violations by Iran, including recommending further action.
However, the experts were never appointed due to disagreements among member states, leading to a lack of consensus in the 15-member Security Council. On Thursday, 11 members voted to extend the monitoring mandate, while Pakistan and Somalia abstained.
"We strongly urge Western colleagues to stop their very dangerous actions on the Iran front, which threaten further complication of settling the crisis in the Persian Gulf," Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council after the vote.
Iran's mission to the UN thanked Russia and China for opposing what it called a "politically motivated" US draft resolution. "Iran deeply appreciates Russia and China for their consistent and principled positions and decisive actions today," it said in a post on X, adding that they "prevented yet another cynical attempt by the United States and its allies to abuse the Security Council for their political purposes."
UN sanctions were officially reimposed against Iran in September 2025 when France, Germany, and the United Kingdom triggered the "snapback" mechanism, reinstating six earlier Security Council resolutions sanctioning Iran's nuclear and military programmes. "Without an independent panel of experts, this council loses its principal source of impartial, evidence-based reporting on sanctions violations, creating a monitoring gap that only benefits the Iranian regime and those who profit from evading those measures," Jennifer Locetta, the deputy US Ambassador to the UN, told the council after the vote.
Earlier this week, the US barred Iran's nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, from attending the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) annual conference in Vienna after the Security Council rejected a waiver to lift his travel ban, part of the so-called "snapback" sanctions targeting Iranian officials linked to the country's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Eslami and his delegation were forced to cancel their trip to the five-day conference after Austria revoked his visa, Iranian state media said.
Source: www.aljazeera.com