The United States has revised and ciculated a resolution that would extend a UN arms embargo on Iran indefinitely, seeking to gain more support in the 15-member Security Council where veto-wielding Russia and China have voiced strong opposition. US Ambassador Kelly Craft said the new draft "takes council views into account and simply does what everyone knows should be done — extend the arms embargo to prevent Iran from freely buying and selling conventional weapons." "It is only common sense that the world's #1 state sponsor of terror not be given the means of unleashing even greater harm on the world," she said in a statement. Council diplomats said the revised draft could be put in a final form Thursday and put to a vote Friday. Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the new resolution had not been made public, said the revised text is shorter than the original draft circulated in June. That draft included several provisions that some diplomats objected to as going beyond the extension of the arms embargo. One provision in the original resolution would have authorized all UN member states to inspect cargo entering or transiting through their territory at airports, seaports and free trade zones from Iran or heading there, if the member state had "reasonable grounds to believe the cargo" contained banned items. Another provision would have condemned a September 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia and December 2019 attacks on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk and the US Embassy in Baghdad, saying Iran was responsible. The foreign ministers of Russia and China, in separate letters to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council last month, were sharply critical of the US effort to indefinitely extend the arms embargo. They gave every indication they would veto any such resolution if it got the minimum nine "yes" votes in the 15-member council, which appears unlikely. If the resolution is defeated, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested the US would invoke the "snap back" mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal that would restore all UN sanctions on Iran. "Snap back" was envisioned in the event Iran was proven to be in violation of the accord, under which it received billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. — Agencies
