Veto Blocks UN Expert Panel on Iran Sanctions
A U.S.-sponsored measure that would have let United Nations specialists keep tracking the penalties placed on Iran over its nuclear activities was blocked Thursday when Russia and China used their veto power. The draft, which sought a one-year renewal of the expert panel's remit, failed 11-2, with Somalia and Pakistan choosing not to vote. The penalties remain in force and include freezing Iranian assets overseas, stopping weapons transactions with Tehran, and punishing any work on Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, along with other steps.[S1]
Those measures took effect again on Sept. 27, 2025, once France, Germany and the United Kingdom invoked the snapback provision contained in the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and major powers. That step brought back the Security Council sanctions committee and gave a group of U.N. experts the task of watching how the measures were carried out. Although the panel received its authorization a year ago and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put forward names, no members were ever confirmed.[S1]
US Campaign to Isolate Tehran Intensifies
The veto lands as the Trump administration presses a broader effort to cut Tehran off from the economic partners it still has, while a war in Iran lasting more than six months has settled into a deadlock. Also on Thursday, the administration went after digital currency networks it accuses of unlawfully giving sanctioned Iranian bodies a route into the global financial system. Treasury and State announced penalties on two firms — BitBank and the Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Co. — plus three people linked to BitBank's previously blacklisted head, Babak Zanjani, said to have aided Iranian sanctions evasion.[S1]
Reactions and Concerns Over Monitoring Gap
Iran's U.N. mission expressed gratitude to China and Russia for blocking the U.S. resolution, posting on social media that they had stopped another cynical effort by Washington and its allies to misuse the Security Council for political ends. U.S. deputy ambassador Jennifer Locetta said the vetoes came as no surprise, since the experts would have exposed forbidden cooperation between Iran and its partners. She cautioned that absent an independent expert panel, the council would lose its main source of unbiased, evidence-based accounts of sanctions violations, leaving a monitoring gap that helps only the Iranian regime and those profiting from evasion.[S1]
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia repeated Moscow's position that the snapback of sanctions on Iran was unlawful, meaning the resolution extending the experts' mandate was seriously flawed and lacked any legal foundation. He noted that Russia and China had pressed the U.S. and its allies hard not to bring the measure to a vote, warning it would only heighten tensions in the council, yet Washington chose confrontation. French U.N. Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont, serving as council president, said enforcing sanctions is a key tool for pushing Iran back toward its nuclear obligations. France, he added, will examine ways to ensure enforcement, one option being to mirror the approach taken after the North Korea experts panel was dissolved: forming a monitoring team with France, Germany, the U.K. and the United States.[S1]
Nuclear Inspections Remain Stalled
U.N. nuclear inspectors have not been able to confirm the condition of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has reported that Iran held 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched to as much as 60% purity — a brief technical distance from the 90% level used in weapons. A Russian veto in March 2024 put an end to U.N. monitoring of sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program. Sanctions in Mali were ended, and Locetta said expert appointments in Yemen and the Central African Republic have been postponed or turned down.[S1]
