UNSC to take up Russia, China’s last-ditch effort to delay sanctions on Iran

United Nations: Russia and China are forcing the UN Security Council to vote Friday on a resolution that would give Iran a six-month extension before sanctions related to its nuclear programme are reimposed.

The last-ditch effort by Iran’s few and closest allies is unlikely to garner enough support to pass the 15-member council. It comes a day before a series of UN sanctions are set to take effect as outlined in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

That would again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with

Tehran and penalise any development of Iran’s ballistic missile programme, among other measures, further squeezing the country’s reeling economy.

Britain, Germany and France, known as the E3, triggered the so-called “snapback” mechanism last month after accusing Tehran of failing to comply with the

conditions of the accord and when weeks of high-level negotiations failed to reach a diplomatic resolution.

Since the 30-day clock began, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has been meeting with his French, British and German counterparts to strike a last-minute deal, leading up to this

week’s UN General Assembly gathering. But those talks appeared futile, with one European diplomat telling the Associated Press on Wednesday that the most recent talks “did not produce any new developments, any new results.”

Therefore, European sources “expect that the snapback procedure will continue as planned.” agencies