The Security Council Resolution Against
Iran is Illegal
On July 31, the United Nations Security
Council passed a resolution making it mandatory that Iran suspend all uranium
enrichment-related and reprocessing activities including research and
development by August 31 or face the possibility of economic and other
sanctions. The resolution was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which
relates to threats to peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression. All
five permanent members of the council - United States, Britain, France, Russia
and China - voted in favour of the resolution along
with nine of the temporary members. Only Qatar voted against the resolution on
the grounds that it would be wrong for the Security Council to further inflame
the situation in this region in view of the Israeli war against Lebanon, and
that there was no urgency to deal with this matter before August 22 when Iran
had promised to reply to the June 6 proposal from the five permanent members of
the Security Council plus Germany (Group of 5 + 1).
The resolution to make the suspension of
uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities mandatory is against the
fundamental principles of international law, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board resolutions. Iran
extended full co-operation to the IAEA and went beyond its international obligations
and adopted extensive and costly confidence-building measures, including a
voluntary suspension of its rightful enrichment activities for more than two
years. It also allowed the Agency to repeatedly visit military sites and
allowed inspectors to take environmental samples. The IAEA in its November 2004
resolution declared that suspension "is a voluntary, non-legally binding,
confidence-building measure." This was repeated as recently as June 15,
2006 in the IAEA Board Chairman's conclusions.
Iran's peaceful nuclear program poses no
threat to international peace and security. Therefore, dealing with this issue
by the Security Council was unwarranted and had no legal basis. The IAEA has
concluded time and again that there is no evidence of an Iran nuclear weapons
program. In November 2003, for example, the IAEA confirmed that "to date,
there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and
activities...were related to a nuclear weapons program." A year later, and
last September, it concluded again that "all the declared nuclear material
in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to
prohibited activities." The same conclusion can be found in the IAEA
February 2006 report which states that: "As indicated to the Board in
November 2004, and again in September 2005, all the declared nuclear material
in Iran has been accounted for." The Agency reaffirmed once again in
paragraph 53 of the same report that it "has not seen any diversion of
nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive device."
The major powers are not serious about
reaching a negotiated settlement with Iran over the nuclear issue. As the
saying goes, they are negotiating in bad faith. They do not want to recognize
Iran as a sovereign state, nor do they want to treat Iran on an equal footing,
nor do they want to find a compromise that respects the rights of Iran under
international law while ensuring to everyone's satisfaction that Iran's nuclear
program is for peaceful purposes only. Their modus operandi is to put
forward proposals, pre-conditions and timeframes that no self-respecting
sovereign state could possibly accept and then denounce Iran for being against
negotiations for rejecting their demeaning and degrading proposals,
pre-conditions and timeframes. In this way they are hoping to strengthen their
case for political, economic and military sanctions against Iran, which the
United States has been demanding all along.
A case in point is the package of proposals presented to Iran by
the Group of 5+1 on June 6, 2006. Despite the fact that the Group of 5+1
attached a pre-condition to this proposal - that Iran suspend its uranium
enrichment activities - this initiative was welcomed by Iran. The first round
of preliminary negotiations had already taken place with a representative of
the EU in Brussels. However, the United States, Britain, France and Germany
demanded that Iran reply to the proposal by June 29. It would be normal in such
circumstances to find a mutually acceptable timeframe. It would also be normal
that a thorough consideration of such a proposal would require a reasonable
time. For example, the EU-3 took nearly five months to respond to a very
serious proposal made by Iran in March 2005. Iran stated that it would require
until August 22 to conclude its evaluation of the proposed package and come up
with a response, but the Group of 5+1 could not wait for Iran's response. On
July 12 they decided to return the issue to the Security Council because Iran
had failed to comply to their pre-condition for negotiations by June 29.
Iran has been and continues to be ready for
negotiations. Since October 2003, Iran has done its utmost to sustain and even
resuscitate negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. Since August 2004,
Iran has made at least eight far-reaching proposals. In a statement to the
Security Council on July 31, before the vote was taken on the resolution, Dr.
M. Javad Zarif, Iran's
permanent representative to the United Nations, characterized the resolution as
pressure and coercion. He stated: "I would suggest to you that this
approach will not lead to any productive outcome, and in fact it can only
exacerbate the situation. The people and Government of the Islamic Republic of
Iran are not seeking confrontation and have always shown their readiness to
engage in serious and result-oriented negotiations based on mutual respect and
equal footing. They have also shown, time and again, their resilience in the
face of pressure, threat, injustice and imposition."
On August 6, Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, held a press conference at which he announced that Iran will reject both the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council and the suspension of uranium enrichment. He stated that the resolution was illegal because Iran has not violated the NPT. Stressing that Iran is always ready for talks, Larijani said: "The double-standard policy practiced by the Western countries towards Iran's nuclear program has led to a position where they have complicated the issue with their own hands. On the one hand, they offered the package and on the other, issued the resolution. By doing this, they changed the procedure of solving the problem. They should understand that they cannot talk to Iran by the language of force. They have to change their approach if they want the package to survive."