Lavrov told Rossiy-1 TV in an interview today that the U.S. attempt to restore sanctions on Iran might trigger a serious scandal at the UN Security Council and eventually undermine its authority. He said that he expects the United States to try to restore international binding sanctions against Iran “by using legalistic, quasi-juridical 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, reported TASS, quoting from the Foreign Ministry website.
“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the United States when it would decide to punish Iran for allegedly violating the agreement from which the U.S. had withdrawn.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.”
Lavrov went on to say that the U.S. attempt to restore sanctions against Iran is a clear example of how Western nations try to replace the notion of “international law” with “rule-based order.” He said that “There have been many examples of this, and they are becoming more and more frequent. This is a very dangerous tendency.”
Lavrov said that the United States will not be able to violate the UN Security Council resolution and distort the internationally sealed agreement, but “they can still deal damage to the UN Security Council.”
“We will try our best to dissuade our U.S. partners from such reckless moves,” the minister said.
