The U.S.-led resolution to extend the U.N. arms embargo on Iran was rejected on Friday night in the U.N. Security Council, announced the United States.
The final tally was two in favor, two against and 11 abstentions.
As expected, China and Russia, who, like the United States, have a permanent veto on the Security Council, vetoed the measure.
The arms embargo is set to expire on Oct. 18 in accordance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the United States withdrew from in May 2018, reimposing sanctions lifted under it, along with enacting new penalties against the regime.
The resolution, which Reuters saw, is only four paragraphs long. It called for extending the 2010 ban “until the Security Council decides otherwise,” stating that it is “essential to the maintenance of international peace and security.”
The Trump administration previously said that a rejection of the resolution would result in enacting snapback sanctions under the deal, which would include extending the arms embargo indefinitely.
In accordance with the 2015 agreement, America will need to inform the Security Council a month earlier if it intends to enact snapback.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the rejection of the resolution.
“The Security Council’s failure to act decisively in defense of international peace and security is inexcusable,” he said. “The Security Council rejected direct appeals to extend the arms embargo from numerous countries in the Middle East endangered by Iran’s violence. Arab nations and Israel strongly supported extending the embargo.”
Without saying whether the United States will enact snapback sanctions, Pompeo remarked that the United States “will continue to work to ensure that the theocratic terror regime does not have the freedom to purchase and sell weapons that threaten the heart of Europe, the Middle East and beyond.”
Jewish and pro-Israel organizations denounced the rejection of the resolution.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee said the decision “dangerously serves to further empower the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Supplying arms to the Iranian regime threatens to further destabilize the region and is contrary to the security interests of the United States and our allies.”
Without specifying, AIPAC called on the Trump administration to “explore additional options to ensure that Iran will not be allowed to further arm itself and its terrorist allies.”
“In its failure to renew these sanctions, the U.N. Security Council has enabled a rogue regime that threatens the entirety of the Middle East—and others far beyond—to become an even more dangerous threat to global peace and security,” said B’nai B’rith International in a statement, explicitly calling for the United States to enact snapback sanctions.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations warned about the consequences of what could happen should the embargo expire.
“Should the embargo end this fall, the rogue Iranian regime will likely rush to amass additional weapons for its own use and to supply its terrorist proxies,” said the umbrella organization in a statement. “As a result, the security of American forces, as well as those of our allies, including Israel, will be at greater risk. This is an outrage that strengthens Iran in its quest for hegemony in the Middle East.”
The Conference also explicitly called for snapback sanctions, saying “the international community must take this urgent step against a regime that openly calls for death to America and Israel, and undermines the stability and security of the region.”
