The UN Security Council voted 11-2 on Thursday to adopt a provisional agenda that included taking up the “snapback” of sanctions against Iran for supposedly violating UNSC resolution 2231—the resolution that ratified the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran—following the International Atomic Energy Agency referral of Iran to the UNSC on Wednesday. The tabling of the provisional agenda—which could not be vetoed—sparked a clash between the U.S. and its allies on the one side and Russia and China on the other, for mainly two reasons: First, Resolution 2231 expired last October; second, the entire crisis around Iran’s nuclear program was ignited by Trump’s pulling the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018.
The last time the IAEA referred Iran to the UNSC was on June 12, 2025. Without cover in hand, Israel began its 12-day war the next day, with the U.S. joining in on June 22 with its “Operation Midnight Hammer” strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Moscow denounced the Iran agenda item as an illegitimate exercise and an “inefficient use” of council resources, with the Russian representative describing it as a “flagrant procedural breach,” according to a lengthy report on Thursday’s meeting published by Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. The Russian envoy accused Washington and Israel of conducting strikes on “peaceful” facilities under IAEA safeguards, warning that the “illegal and reckless actions” risked provoking a wider regional catastrophe, while dismissing the IAEA resolution as “politicized.”
Beijing maintained that lasting solutions require addressing the root causes of regional tensions. The “United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, its use of force against Iran twice during the negotiation process, and its pursuit of a policy of maximum pressure against Iran are the primary causes of the current complex and intractable situation in the Middle East and the Iranian nuclear issue,” argued the Chinese envoy. China defended Iran’s “legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” and said it acknowledges “Iran’s repeated commitments not to develop nuclear weapons.”
The U.S., British, and French envoys ignored those points and blamed Iran instead, even though, in fact, Iran’s actions, including its enrichment of uranium up to 60-percent purity, came in response to what the U.S. was doing in complete violation of not only the JCPOA but also the NPT.
