Politics
UNSC decides not to lift Iran sanctions, but still time to agree delay
- Britain, France, Germany offer delay if Iran meets conditions.
- US open to diplomacy despite voting against resolution.
- Iran’s allies propose six-month extension for negotiations.
The United Nations Security Council did not adopt a draft resolution on Friday to permanently lift sanctions on Iran, but Tehran and key European powers still have eight days to try and agree to a delay.
The 15-member UN Security Council was required to vote on the draft resolution on Friday after Britain, France and Germany launched a 30-day process on August 28 to reimpose UN sanctions, accusing Tehran of failing to abide by a 2015 deal with world powers that aimed to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies having any such intention.
Russia, China, Pakistan and Algeria voted in favour of the draft text on Friday. Nine members voted against, and two abstained.
The Security Council vote has now set up a week of intense diplomacy while world leaders — including Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian — are in New York for the annual high-level UN General Assembly.
Iran says vote outcome ‘weakens diplomacy’
“The door for diplomacy is not closed, but it will be Iran, not adversaries, who decide with whom and on what basis to engage,” Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told reporters after the vote.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will meet with his European counterparts in New York next week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he said, adding that Friday’s divided vote showed there was “no consensus in the council”.
“This decision weakens diplomacy and risks dangerous consequences for non-proliferation,” Iravani said.
Britain, France and Germany have offered to delay reinstating sanctions for up to six months — to allow space for talks on a long-term deal on Tehran’s nuclear program — if Iran restores access for UN nuclear inspectors, addresses concerns about its stock of enriched uranium, and engages in talks with the United States.
“Without these most basic conditions being met, there is no clear path to a swift diplomatic solution,” Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the council. “We are ready for further engagements, diplomatically, in the next week, and beyond, to seek to resolve differences.”
Any delay in reimposing sanctions would require a Security Council resolution. If a deal on an extension can’t be reached by the end of September 27, then all UN sanctions will be reimposed.
Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the move by the “E3” group of Britain, France and Germany to reimpose sanctions on Tehran as “illegal, unjustified and provocative,” saying it “gravely” undermined diplomatic efforts.
US remains ready to engage, says envoy
Acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea said that while the US voted “no” on Friday, it “does not impede the possibility of real diplomacy”, adding that a return of sanctions on Iran “does not preclude later removal through diplomacy”.
“More importantly, President Trump has continued to reiterate the United States’ ongoing readiness for meaningful, direct, and timebound dialogue with Iran — be it prior to the conclusion of the snapback process on September 27, or after,” she told the council.
French UN Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont said that since the 30-day process — known as snapback —was triggered, the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain had met twice with their Iranian counterpart.
“Our hand remains outstretched to find a negotiated solution,” he told the council before the vote.
Separately, Iran’s strategic allies Russia and China finalised a draft Security Council resolution late last month that would extend the 2015 deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations. But they have not yet asked for a vote.
Russia and China, which are also parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, have both rejected the Europeans’ bid to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran.
China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong said the attempt to trigger snapback was “detrimental to the diplomatic effort towards an early resumption of talks, and may even bring about catastrophic consequences that are impossible to foresee and forfeit years of diplomatic efforts in one stroke”.
The United States is in discussions with the Taliban about re-establishing a small US military presence at Afghanistan’s Bagram air base as a launch point for counterterrorism operations, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the negotiations.
The Journal, citing a US official, also reported that the talks, headed by Special Envoy for Hostage Response Adam Boehler, include a potential prisoner exchange, a possible economic deal, and a security component.
This is a developig story and is being updated with more details.
Turkiye will never hand over to Israel a coveted Biblical-era ancient inscription that was found in a tunnel beneath Jerusalem during Ottoman times, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
He was referring to the so-called Siloam or Silwan inscription, a Hebrew tablet dating back 2,700 years, which is currently held in Istanbul’s archaeology museum.
The issue sparked a fresh bout of diplomatic sparring on Monday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told how his efforts to retrieve the artefact in 1998 were rebuffed— on the grounds that it would “outrage” the Islamist constituency headed by Erdogan, who was Istanbul’s mayor at the time.
Speaking on Friday, Erdogan accused Netanyahu of “spewing hatred” at Turkiye “for not returning the Silwan inscription, a legacy of our ancestors”.
“Jerusalem is the honour, dignity and glory of all humanity and all Muslims… yet he shamelessly continues to pursue the inscription: we won’t give you that inscription, let alone a single pebble from Jerusalem,” he said.
The inscription was discovered in the late 19th century inside the Siloam tunnel, an ancient aqueduct underneath Jerusalem.
The limestone tablet, which describes how the tunnel was built, was found in 1880 when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire and taken to Constantinople, now Istanbul, where it has remained ever since.
For Israel, the inscription is a key element of historical proof demonstrating Jewish presence in Jerusalem that it has wanted to obtain for years.
Speaking on Monday at the inauguration of a newly-excavated ancient road under Silwan, a densely populated Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, Netanyahu described the inscription as one of Israel’s “most important” archeological discoveries after the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Relating a conversation with then Turkish premier Mesut Yilmaz in 1998, Netanyahu said he had offered him a wealth of Ottoman artefacts.
“I said: we have thousands of Ottoman artefacts in our museums.. Let’s do an exchange. And he said, no, I’m sorry, I can’t. I said: take all the artifacts in our museums. And he said, no, I can’t do that,” the Israeli leader recounted.
‘Turkish PM feared backlash’
He then quoted Yilmaz as saying there was “a growing Islamist constituency headed by Erdogan and it would cause “outrage” if Turkiye
“would give Israel a tablet that would show that Jerusalem was a Jewish city 2,700 years ago”.
“Well, we’re here. This is our city. Mr Erdogan, it’s not your city, it’s our city. It will always be,” Netanyahu said.
He appeared to be referencing remarks by Erdogan in a 2020 speech to lawmakers when he described Jerusalem as “our city, a city from us”, emphasising Turkiye’s historic ties to the city that spent two centuries under the Ottoman Empire.
Erdogan, whose relationship with Israel has nosedived over the Gaza war, hit back on Wednesday, dismissing Netanyahu’s “tantrums” and pledging: “We as Muslims will not step back from our rights over East Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem’s historic Old City houses holy sites revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians.
It is a frequent site of tension and violence, which is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hong Kong planned to evacuate thousands of residents on Friday as a bomb left over from World War II was discovered at a construction site.
Police said that the bomb measured approximately 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) in length and weighed about 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds), adding that they believed it remained “fully functional”.
“Due to the extremely high risks involved in dismantling and disposing of the bomb, we must activate the emergency evacuation plan,” said Hong Kong Police’s district commander Andy Chan.
About 6,000 people from 18 residential buildings in the Quarry Bay area will be evacuated on Friday night, with demolition work set to begin early Saturday morning, police added.
Hong Kong was an early target in what would become a full-blown Asian campaign for imperial Japan during the Second World War.
The city saw fierce fighting between Japanese and Allied forces during wartime, and hikers and construction workers still occasionally discover unexploded bombs in the territory nearly 100 years later.
In May 2018, a bomb was discovered in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district, which led authorities to evacuate 1,200 residents.
Police said the unexploded ordnance unearthed on Friday was of the same type as the one found in 2018.
At that time, the bomb disposal process took about 20 hours to complete.
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