U.S. circulates United Nations resolution Iran nuclear deal
UNITED NATIONS -- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power distributed a draft U.N. resolution on Wednesday to members of the Security Council to implement the agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
The draft resolution will terminate all seven U.N. resolutions that had been in effect since 2006 -- resolutions that put sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program -- upon receipt of the International Atomic Energy Agency report that Iran has complied. Those resolutions could be reinstated if Iran does not comply with the terms of the agreement. It also leaves in place, for a limited period, the arms and ballistic missiles embargo, for five and eight years, respectively.
Last week, Power said the new resolution was being submitted on behalf of the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany along with the European Union.
CBS News received a copy of the resolution, which lays out all the aspects of the Iran deal that were announced on July 14. The resolution was circulated to Council members on the same day that President Obama held a press conference to address concerns about the agreement.
The resolution is expected to pass easily early next week, since the outline of the document was included in the 159-page document that was agreed to in Vienna by the five veto-wielding members of the Council.
In its opening, the resolution welcomes the "diplomatic efforts by China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Iran to reach a comprehensive, long-term and proper solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, culminating in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)."
The U.N. resolution does not go into effect until 90 days (called "Adoption Day") after the adoption of the JCPOA by the Council, or an earlier date, if that is agreed to by mutual consent by all participants. The idea, a U.S. government official familiar with the resolution said in a briefing, was that no parties wanted to get this started before the U.S. Congress had a chance to review it.
But if Congress votes against the deal and has enough votes to override a promised veto from President Obama, it is not clear what would happen next. The U.S. official said U.S. law does not "trump" U.N. resolutions but, in that event, U.S. sanctions would not be lifted and Iran would probably not comply, making the resolution moot. It would however, remain in effect, potentially allowing other nations to lift their sanctions and resume trade, assuming Iran continued with the agreements.
The resolution also has a termination date. Ten years after the resolution goes into effect, "all the provisions of this resolution shall be terminated, and none of the previous resolutions... shall be applied, the Security Council will have concluded its consideration of the Iranian nuclear issue, and the item 'Non-proliferation' will be removed from the list of matters of which the Council is seized."
"Much work remains to be done to give the international community confidence that Iran's nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful, but today's deal is an important milestone in America's pursuit of a safer, more secure world," Power said after the JCPOA was agreed to last week.
The resolution parallels the detailed agreement that is laid out in the JCPOA: Sanctions relief for Iran will begin, the U.S. official said, when Iran completes the steps laid out in the resolution, including addressing outstanding questions about its nuclear program and reducing its installed centrifuges and exporting its stockpiles of uranium.
Issues that critics have raised, including the more lengthy process of on site inspections of military facilities, are embodied in the resolution.
Israel is not on the U.N. Security Council, but its ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, said of the deal, "Tomorrow, the rest of the world will pay the price."
The draft resolution discusses the role of the inspectors and states: "Strongly supporting the essential and independent role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in verifying compliance with safeguards agreements, including the non-diversion of declared nuclear material to undeclared purposes and the absence of undeclared nuclear material and undeclared nuclear activities, and, in this context, in ensuring the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, including through the implementation of the 'Framework for Cooperation' agreed between Iran and the IAEA on 11 November 2013 and the 'Roadmap for Clarification of Past and Present Outstanding Issues,' and recognizing the IAEA's important role in supporting full implementation of the JCPOA."
There are "funky" counter-intuitive parts of the way the U.N. resolution implements the plan, the official said, and those will have to be explained during the coming months.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters at the U.N., "This is one of the most complicated, imaginative and interesting draft resolutions the Security Council has ever considered."
