A U.N. Security Council committee is split over whether the Iranian regime missile tests last year violated U.N. sanctions imposed on the regime because of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Australia’s U.N. envoy said on Monday.
Diplomats said it was Russia, backed by China, that refused to declare Tehran’s missile launches a violation of the U.N. restrictions, as a U.N. Panel of Experts said was the case.
The rift on the Iran sanctions committee, which consists of all 15 Security Council members, highlights the difficulties Western powers face in persuading Russia and China to join them in keeping up the pressure on Tehran to halt banned nuclear and missile work, Reuters reported.
As long as the sanctions committee remains divided, it will be difficult for the Security Council to add names of any Iranian individuals or entities linked to the missile tests, Security Council diplomats told reuters on condition of anonymity.
Australia’s U.N. Ambassador Gary Quinlan, chairman of the Iran sanctions committee, told the council that “a number of committee members expressed the view … that the launches constituted a clear violation of (U.N. sanctions) and that therefore all member states should redouble their efforts to implement ballistic missile-related sanctions on Iran.”
“At this stage some committee members cannot share this view,” he added in his latest three-month report to the council.
The tests involved the launch of Shahab missiles in July 2012 during a military exercises.
“These included launches of the Shahab 1 and 3, Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Tondar missiles, as well as an anti-ship ballistic missile, the Khalij Fars,” the Iran Panel of Experts said in its May report to the Iran sanctions committee.