UN Security Council to Vote Friday on Reimposing Iran Nuclear Sanctions

The United Nations Security Council is expected to vote Friday on whether to stop the reimposition of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. European officials are warning Tehran that the time left for a diplomatic fix is running out, with world leaders due to gather at the U.N. next week for their annual session.

The resolution was put forward by South Korea, which holds the presidency of the 15-member council this month. To halt the sanctions before they take effect at the end of the month, as laid out in Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the resolution would need at least nine votes. Diplomats have indicated that views differ, but that there is not enough support to spare Iran from all sanctions with no conditions attached.

The sanctions are coming back because of the so-called snapback mechanism, which France, Germany and the United Kingdom moved to trigger last month. It automatically restores every U.N. sanction that was in force before the nuclear deal: a conventional arms embargo, restrictions on ballistic missile development, asset freezes, travel bans and a ban on producing nuclear-related technology. The process is built to be veto-proof, so it proceeds unless the Security Council itself agrees to stop it.

In recent weeks, Iran and the European countries have held intensified talks, but they have produced no resolution, and the signs have pointed toward sanctions. French President Emmanuel Macron was asked Thursday on Israel's Channel 12 whether snapback was a done deal. "Yes, I think so," he said, "because the latest news we had from the Iranians are not serious."

On Wednesday, German and European Union leaders told Iran in a call that it had not yet taken the steps needed to prevent the sanctions. The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said in a statement that the window for a diplomatic solution is closing fast. She said Iran must show credible steps toward meeting the demands of France, the U.K. and Germany, which means full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and allowing inspections of all nuclear sites without delay.

Hours later, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again said that reimposing U.N. sanctions lacks any legal or logical justification. He also pointed to an agreement Iran recently reached with the IAEA, mediated by Egypt, to give the agency access to all Iranian nuclear sites and to have Tehran report where all its nuclear material is located.

Details of that agreement have not been released. IAEA Director Rafael Grossi told his agency's board of governors in Vienna last week that the document provides a clear understanding of how inspection notifications will work and be carried out. He said it covers all facilities and installations in Iran, and also requires reporting on the facilities that were attacked, including the nuclear material present at them. It will, he said, open the way for inspections and access, though he did not say when they would happen.

That last point matters because of what happened in June, when Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran. Both Israeli and American forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites, leaving the status of Tehran's stockpile of uranium enriched nearly to weapons-grade in question. Iran is also already contending with a decades-long financial crisis.

Using snapback will likely raise tensions between Iran and the West. How Tehran will respond is unclear. Iranian officials have in the past threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would echo North Korea, a country that left the treaty in 2003 and later built atomic weapons. After Friday's vote, the questions are whether the sanctions take effect at the end of the month, and when, if ever, IAEA inspectors get the access they were promised.