UN Security Council rejects Russia and China's last-ditch effort to
delay sanctions on Iran
[September 27, 2025]
By FARNOUSH AMIRI, STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN and EDITH M.
LEDERER
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Friday rejected a
last-ditch effort to delay reimposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear
program, a decision that the country's president immediately called
“unfair, unjust and illegal.” The decision on the “snapback sanctions”
came a day before the deadline and after Western countries claimed weeks
of meetings failed to result in a concrete agreement.
The resolution put forth by Russia and China — Iran’s most powerful and
closest allies on the 15-member council — failed to garner support from
the nine countries required to halt the series of U.N. sanctions from
taking effect Saturday, as outlined in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with
world powers. The vote was 4-9 with two abstentions.
“We had hoped that European colleagues and the U.S. would think twice,
and they would opt for the path of diplomacy and dialogue instead of
their clumsy blackmail, which merely results in escalation of the
situation in the region,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, the deputy Russian
ambassador to the U.N., said during the meeting.
Shortly after the vote, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke at a
meeting with journalists and Iran experts on the sidelines of the U.N.
General Assembly, a day before the deadline for the sanctions to kick
in. Pezeshkian said that despite previous threats, Iran won't withdraw
from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty like North Korea, which
abandoned the treaty in 2003 and then built atomic weapons.
Barring an eleventh-hour deal, the reinstatement of sanctions —
triggered by Britain, France and Germany — will once again freeze
Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran and penalize any
development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures.
That will further squeeze the country’s reeling economy.
The move is expected to heighten already magnified tensions between Iran
and the West. But despite previous threats to withdraw from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, Pezeshkian said in an interview with a group of
reporters that the country had no intention to do so right now. North
Korea, which abandoned the treaty in 2003, went on to build atomic
weapons.
Four countries — China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria — once again
supported giving Iran more time to negotiate with the European
countries, known as the E3, and the United States, which unilaterally
withdrew from the accord with world powers in 2018 during Trump's first
administration.
“The U.S has betrayed diplomacy, but it is the E3 which have buried it,”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the vote. “This
sordid mess did not come about overnight. Both the E3 and the U.S. have
consistently misrepresented Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.”
The European leaders triggered the so-called “snapback” mechanism last
month after accusing Tehran of failing to comply with the conditions of
the accord and when weeks of high-level negotiations failed to reach a
diplomatic resolution.
Lots of diplomacy as deadline nears
Since the 30-day clock began, Araghchi, has been meeting with his
French, British and German counterparts to strike a last-minute deal,
leading up to this week's U.N. General Assembly gathering. But those
talks appeared futile, with one European diplomat telling the Associated
Press on Wednesday that they “did not produce any new developments, any
new results.”
Therefore, European sources “expect that the snapback procedure will
continue as planned.”
But Pezeshkian painted a different image of how the meetings transpired,
saying that it was the Europeans and Americans who refused to make a
deal during the high-level week. In a sprawling interview on the
sidelines of the U.N., the president said that one night this week,
members of the U.S. delegation were supposed to meet with their Iranian
and European counterparts but did not show.
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Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, signs a note in a United
Nations book during the U.N. General Assembly at United Nations
headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
“Every time we spoke with the Europeans, we’ve reached conclusions
and agreements, but then at the end of the day the American side did
not accept,” he said. As for direct U.S.-Iran talks, one night this
week “our foreign minister and European foreign ministers were
supposed to sit together and reach an agreement, but the Americans
never showed up,” he said. “What are we supposed to do?”
Pezeshkian added that when the Americans did show during the six
weeks of negotiations earlier this year, it was hard to rely on
their word and that President Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff,
had flip-flopped on issues that were previously agreed upon.
“The distrust at this moment between us and the U.S. is so large,”
Pezeshkian said, answering a question about what it would take for
Iran to come back to the negotiating table.
But even before Araghchi and Pezeshkian arrived in New York on
Tuesday for the annual gathering, remarks from Iran's supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that peace talks with the United
States represent “a sheer dead end” constrained any eleventh-hour
diplomatic efforts from taking place.
European nations have said they would be willing to extend the
deadline if Iran complies with a series of conditions. Those include
resumption of direct negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear
program, allowing U.N. nuclear inspectors access to its nuclear
sites, and accounts for the more than 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of
highly enriched uranium the U.N. watchdog says it has.
Nuclear inspectors said to be currently in Iran
Of all the nations in the world that don't have nuclear weapons
programs, Iran is the only nation in the world that enriches uranium
up to 60% — a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.
Earlier this month, the U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iran signed an
agreement mediated by Egypt to pave the way for resuming
cooperation, including on ways of relaunching inspections of Iran’s
nuclear facilities. However, Iran has threatened to terminate that
agreement and cut all cooperation with the IAEA should U.N.
sanctions be reimposed.
Iran has been wary of giving full access to inspectors following the
12-day war with Israel in June that saw both the Israelis and the
Americans bomb Iranian nuclear sites, throwing into question the
status of Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched nearly to
weapons-grade levels.
But a diplomat close to the IAEA confirmed on Friday that inspectors
are currently in Iran where they are inspecting a second undamaged
site, and will not leave the country ahead of the expected
reimposition of sanctions this weekend. IAEA inspectors earlier
watched a fuel replacement at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant on
Aug. 27 and 28.
The Europeans have said this action alone is not enough to halt the
sanctions from coming into place Saturday.
___
Liechtenstein reported from Vienna. Associated Press writers Jon
Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.
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