The United Nations Security Council has starred this Thursday in a new clash among its permanent members during the discussion of the agenda regarding the sanctions regime on Iran, with Russia and China questioning the validity of the restrictions imposed on Tehran.
The United Kingdom, France, and the United States have firmly defended holding a specific session in the Council on the Iranian nuclear program, while China and Russia argue that the Western powers violated the 2015 agreement, so any subsequent decision would lack legal basis.
The British ambassador to the United Nations, Sarah MacIntosh, has emphasized that the sanctions mechanism --known as snapback and which empowers the E3 group (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) to reactivate UN sanctions-- was effectively initiated in September 2025, once the Council rejected extending the suspension of measures against Tehran.
In this regard, she has argued that, by failing to extend the suspension, the 'snapback' automatically restored the validity of the resolutions prior to 2015. In turn, this implied reactivating the obligation of Committee 1737 --created in 2006 to oversee the restrictions-- to report every 90 days.
"Six resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, including 1737, have been in force for almost a year. Resolution 1737 is clear in its mandate: the Committee must report to the Security Council on its work at least every 90 days," she has pointed out during her turn to speak.
The American ambassador to the UN, Jennifer Locetta, has indicated that Washington "fully supports the statement" of MacIntosh. "A year ago, this Council chose, in a decisive vote, to allow the reimposition of resolutions 1696, 1737, 1747, 1803, 1835, and 1929 of the Security Council. By virtue of this decision, Committee 1737 was reestablished," she said.
Similarly, Jéerome Bonnafont, French ambassador to the United Nations and president of the Security Council during the month of September, has shown support for convening the session "in accordance with the mandate granted by the resolutions of the Council."
The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasili Nebenzia, has denounced that "certain members of the Security Council do not cease in their attempts to abuse the internal regulations to legitimize their unilateral claims regarding the supposed mechanism for the automatic reinstatement of sanctions."
"The mechanism to restore the previous resolutions of the Security Council on the Iranian nuclear issue, provided for in resolution 2231, was not activated due to various legal and procedural reasons (...) Consequently, there is no basis to resume the activities of Committee 1737, which ceased to exist in 2015, nor to discuss its work in the Council," he argued.
In the same vein, the Chinese ambassador, Sun Lei, emphasized that "the Security Council must play a constructive role," urging states to stop using the body "to promote their own political agendas and to avoid creating new obstacles to the political solution of the Iranian nuclear problem."
"Misinterpreting the historical context of the Iranian nuclear problem, ignoring the difficulties Iran faces in restoring safeguards and verification, and insisting on pushing for the restoration of sanctions against Iran in the Security Council, as well as forcing the intervention of the Security Council on the Iranian nuclear issue, will not contribute to building trust or overcoming the differences between the parties," he said.
Apart from the technical standoff over the regulations --the agenda has finally been approved with eleven favorable votes and two against, given that this type of decision cannot be vetoed by a permanent member-- the controversy reflects a deep geopolitical rift among the major powers of the Security Council regarding Iran.