Tag Archives: United Nations

U.S. aims for U.N. vote on North Korea sanctions within weeks

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley directs comments to the Russian delegation at the conclusion of a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss the recent ballistic missile launch by North Korea at U.N. headquarters in New York

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley aims to put to a vote within weeks a U.N. Security Council resolution to impose stronger sanctions on North Korea over its long-range ballistic missile test, said several senior U.N. diplomats.

Haley told some U.N. diplomats late last week of the ambitious timeline for a U.N. response to North Korea’s launch on Tuesday of a missile that some experts believe could have the range to reach Alaska, and parts of the U.S. West Coast.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations was not immediately available to comment on the timeline for a council vote. Some Security Council diplomats have expressed doubt that a draft resolution could be put to a vote quickly.

Following a nuclear weapons test by North Korea in September, while U.S. President Barack Obama was still in office, it took the U.N. Security Council three months to agree to strengthened sanctions.

The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14. North Korea appeared to have used a Chinese truck, originally sold for hauling timber, but converted for military use, to transport and erect the missile on Tuesday.

The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14. North Korea appeared to have used a Chinese truck, originally sold for hauling timber, but converted for military use, to transport and erect the missile on Tuesday.
KCNA/via REUTERS

The United States gave China a draft resolution to impose stronger sanctions on Pyongyang after the 15-member Security Council met on Wednesday to discuss the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch, diplomats said.

China’s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi told Reuters on Monday that it was important to ensure that any action the Security Council might take should be conducive to achieving the goal of a denuclearized, peaceful and stable Korean peninsula.

“We really must think very carefully about what is the best approach in the Security Council because a resolution, sanctions, are themselves not an objective,” he said.

When asked if the council could act within weeks, Liu said it would depend on how members “see the way forward in terms of council action, in terms of how that is put into the wider context of … improving the situation, preventing further tests, ensuring Security Council resolutions will be abided by.”

Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated new sanctions on North Korea before formally involving other council members. Diplomats said the United States would informally keep Britain and France in the loop, while China was likely talking to Russia.

The United States, China, Russia, Britain and France are the Security Council’s permanent veto-wielding powers. The United States could also face a battle to persuade Russia that council action against North Korea is needed.

On Thursday, Russia objected to a council condemnation of North Korea’s missile launch because the U.S.-drafted statement labeled it an ICBM, a designation Moscow disagrees with. Diplomats said that negotiations on the statement had stalled.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the council has ratcheted up the measures in response to the country’s five nuclear weapons tests and two long-range missile launches.

During the Security Council meeting last Wednesday, Haley said some options to strengthen U.N. sanctions were to restrict the flow of oil to North Korea’s military and weapons programs, increasing air and maritime restrictions and imposing targeted sanctions on senior officials.

Diplomats said Washington proposed such options to Beijing two months ago, but that China had not engaged in discussions on the measures and instead only agreed to adding some people and entities to the existing U.N. sanctions list in June.

 

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

 

At G20 summit, Trump promises $639 million in food, humanitarian aid

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a working session at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, northern Germany, Saturday, July 8, 2017.REUTERS/Markus Schreiber, Pool

HAMBURG (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday promised $639 million in funding for humanitarian programs, including $331 million to help feed starving people in four famine-hit countries – Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.

Trump’s pledge came during a working session of the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg, providing a “godsend” to the U.N. World Food Programme, the group’s executive director, David Beasley, told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.

“We’re facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two,” said Beasley, a Republican and former South Carolina governor who was nominated by Trump to head the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.

He said the additional funding was about a third of what the agency estimated was required this year to deal with urgent food needs in the four countries facing famine and in other areas.

The WFP estimates that 109 million people around the world will need food assistance this year, up from 80 million last year, with 10 of the 13 worst affected zones stemming from wars and “man-made” crises, Beasley said.

“We estimated that if we didn’t receive the funding we needed immediately that 400,000 to 600,000 children would be dying in the next four months,” he said.

Trump’s announcement came after his administration proposed sharp cuts in funding for the U.S. State Department and other humanitarian missions as part of his “America First” policy.

Beasley said the agency had worked hard with the White House and the U.S. government to secure the funding, but Trump would insist that other countries contributed more as well.

A WPF spokesman said Germany recently pledged an additional 200 million euros for food relief.

The United States has long been the largest donor to the WFP.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by John Stonestreet)

U.N. deputy Syria envoy hopeful for southwest ceasefire deal

United Nations Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy talks to press in Damascus, Syria July 8, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – A ceasefire deal agreed for southwestern Syria is a positive development that could help prop up the political process aimed at ending the country’s six-year war, the U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Syria said on Saturday.

“This is a step in the right direction,” Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told reporters in Damascus.

The United States, Russia and Jordan reached a ceasefire and “de-escalation agreement” for southwestern Syria set to take effect on Sunday. The announcement came after a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit of major economies.

Previous ceasefires have failed to hold for long and it was not clear how much the actual combatants in the area – Syrian government forces and the main rebel groups in the southwest – are committed to this latest effort.

“All of this leads to supporting the political process,” Ramzy said after meeting with government officials about U.N.-based peace talks that open in Geneva next week.

“This development helps create the appropriate environment for the talks,” he added, expressing hope that agreements would be reached for other parts of Syria as well.

Among other issues, the latest round of U.N. peace talks, due to start on Monday, will include “continuing technical negotiations about the constitutional and legal matters related to the political process,” Ramzy said.

(This version of the story corrects the spelling of the envoy’s name in the second reference)

(Reporting by Firas Makdesi in Damascus; editing by John Stonestreet and Stephen Powell)

UNESCO declares Hebron shrine Palestinian, Israel pulls U.N. funding

An Israeli soldier walks past Ibrahimi Mosque, which Jews call the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs, in the West Bank city of Hebron July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The U.N. cultural organization declared an ancient shrine in the occupied West Bank a Palestinian heritage site on Friday, prompting Israel to further cut its funding to the United Nations.

UNESCO designated Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart – the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque – a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called that “another delusional UNESCO decision” and ordered that $1 million be diverted from Israel’s U.N. funding to establish a museum and other projects covering Jewish heritage in Hebron.

The funding cut is Israel’s fourth in the past year, taking its U.N. contribution from $11 million to just $1.7 million, an Israeli official said. Each cut has come after various U.N. bodies voted to adopt decisions which Israel said discriminated against it.

Palestinian Foreign Minister, Reyad Al-Maliki, said the UNESCO vote, at a meeting in Krakow, Poland, was proof of the “successful diplomatic battle Palestine has launched on all fronts in the face of Israeli and American pressure on (UNESCO) member countries.”

Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank with a population of some 200,000. About 1,000 Israeli settlers live in the heart of the city and for years it has been a place of religious friction between Muslims and Jews.

Jews believe that the Cave of the Patriarchs is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives, are buried. Muslims, who, like Christians, also revere Abraham, built the Ibrahimi mosque, also known as the Sanctuary of Abraham, in the 14th century.

The religious significance of the city has made it a focal point for settlers, who are determined to expand the Jewish presence there. Living in the heart of the city, they require intense security, with some 800 Israeli troops protecting them.

Even before Netanyahu’s budget announcement, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan signaled Israel would seek to further make its mark at the Hebron shrine, tweeting: “UNESCO will continue to adopt delusional decisions but history cannot be erased … we must continue to manifest our right by building immediately in the Cave of the Patriarchs.”

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

U.N. survey finds cybersecurity gaps everywhere except Singapore

FILE PHOTO - A hooded man holds a laptop computer as blue screen with an exclamation mark is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Singapore has a near-perfect approach to cybersecurity, but many other rich countries have holes in their defenses and some poorer countries are showing them how it should be done, a U.N. survey showed on Wednesday.

Wealth breeds cybercrime, but it does not automatically generate cybersecurity, so governments need to make sure they are prepared, the survey by the U.N. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said.

“There is still an evident gap between countries in terms of awareness, understanding, knowledge and finally capacity to deploy the proper strategies, capabilities and programmes,” the survey said.

The United States came second in the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Index, but many of the other highly rated countries were small or developing economies.

The rest of the top 10 were Malaysia, Oman, Estonia, Mauritius, Australia, Georgia, France and Canada. Russia ranked 11th. India was 25th, one place ahead of Germany, and China was 34th.

The ranking was based on countries’ legal, technical and organizational institutions, their educational and research capabilities, and their cooperation in information-sharing networks.

“Cybersecurity is an ecosystem where laws, organizations, skills, cooperation and technical implementation need to be in harmony to be most effective,” the survey said.

“The degree of interconnectivity of networks implies that anything and everything can be exposed, and everything from national critical infrastructure to our basic human rights can be compromised.”

The crucial first step was to adopt a national security strategy, but 50 percent of countries have none, the survey said.

Among the countries that ranked higher than their economic development was 57th-placed North Korea, which was let down by its “cooperation” score but still ranked three spots ahead of much-richer Spain.

The smallest rich countries also scored badly – Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino were all well down the second half of the table. The Vatican ranked 186th out of 195 countries in the survey.

But no country did worse than Equatorial Guinea, which scored zero.

(Reporting by Tom Miles)

North Korea appeared to use China truck in its first claimed ICBM test

The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang, July, 4 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

By James Pearson and Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea appeared to use a Chinese truck originally sold for hauling timber to transport and erect a ballistic missile that was successfully launched on Tuesday, highlighting the challenge of enforcing sanctions to curb its weapons program.

North Korea state television showed a large truck painted in military camouflage carrying the missile. It was identical to one a U.N. sanctions panel has said was “most likely” converted from a Chinese timber truck.

Since 2006, U.N. sanctions have banned the shipment of military hardware to North Korea. But control of equipment and vehicles that have “dual-use” military and civilian applications has been far less stringent.

The vehicle was imported from China and declared for civilian use by the North Korean foreign ministry, according to a 2013 report by the U.N. panel. Tuesday’s launch was the first time the truck had been seen in a military field operation in pictures published in state media.

China, North Korea’s largest trading partner and its sole major ally, is under increasing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said Chinese efforts to rein in North Korea’s weapons programs have failed.

The truck had been previously on display at military parades in 2012 and in 2013 carrying what experts said appeared to be developmental models or mock-ups of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Images on the North Korea’s state television showed soldiers working on the vehicle mounted with a missile, which was then erected and off-loaded ahead of the launch at a hillside location. Leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test.

The transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) is a vehicle designed to move a ballistic missile and stand it upright, allowing for a mobile system that makes surveillance difficult for spy satellites.

In its 2013 report, the U.N. panel of experts said the features of the vehicle in the 2012 parade exactly matched those of a vehicle sold by China’s Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Company.

DELIBERATE BREACH?

The company is a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a state-owned company that makes the Shenzhou rocket as well as missiles.

A company manager reached by telephone declined to comment citing the sensitivity of the issue.

China submitted to the U.N. panel a copy of the end user certificate provided by the North stating that six of the vehicles were being imported for the purpose of transporting timber.

The panel said it “considers it most likely that the (North) deliberately breached” the certificate and converted the trucks into transporter-erector-launchers.

This year, North Korea used another Chinese-made truck model to tow submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) at a military parade on the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung.

Last year, state media published photos showing Chinese-made trucks being used in a new North Korean mobile rocket artillery system.

Both vehicles showed the logo or had markings specific to the Chinese company Sinotruk.

A Sinotruk sales official said in April he was not aware the company’s trucks were used in the military parade.

North Korean state media has in the past released images of Sinotruk chassis and cabins related to construction or mining.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, after the launch, it was opposed to North Korea contravening rules laid out in U.N. Security council resolutions. China was working hard to resolve the issue and urged all sides to meet each other half way, it added.

(Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

North Korea says intercontinental ballistic missile test successful

A man watches a TV broadcast of a news report on North Korea's ballistic missile test, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Christine Kim and Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea said on Tuesday it successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time, which flew a trajectory that experts said could allow a weapon to hit the U.S. state of Alaska.

The launch came days before leaders from the Group of 20 nations were due to discuss steps to rein in North Korea’s weapons program, which it has pursued in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

The launch, which North Korea’s state media said was ordered and supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, sent the rocket 933 km (580 miles) reaching an altitude of 2,802 km over a flight time of 39 minutes.

North Korea has said it wants to develop a missile mounted with a nuclear warhead capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

To do that it would need an ICBM with a range of 8,000 km (4,800 miles) or more, a warhead small enough to be mounted on it and technology to ensure its stable re-entry into the atmosphere.

Some analysts said the flight details on Tuesday suggested the new missile had a range of more than 8,000 km, underscoring major advances in its program. Other analysts said they believed its range was not so far.

Officials from South Korea, Japan and the United States said the missile landed in the sea in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone after being launched on a high trajectory from near an airfield northwest of the North’s capital, Pyongyang.

“The test launch was conducted at the sharpest angle possible and did not have any negative effect on neighboring countries,” North Korea’s state media said in a statement.

The North said its missiles were now capable of striking anywhere in the world.

“It appears the test was successful. If launched on a standard angle, the missile could have a range of more than 8,000 km,” said Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

“But we have to see more details of the new missile to determine if North Korea has acquired ICBM technology.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who convened a national security council meeting, said earlier the missile was believed to be an intermediate-range type, but the military was looking into the possibility it was an ICBM.

‘HEAVY MOVE’

U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter: “North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?” in an apparent reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“Hard to believe South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”, Trump said in a series of tweets.

Stock markets in both South Korea and Japan fell, with the Kospi ending down 0.6 percent and Japan’s Nikkei share average ending down 0.1 percent.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would ask the presidents of China and Russia to play more constructive roles in efforts to stop Pyongyang’s arms program.

“Leaders of the world will gather at the G20 meeting. I would like to strongly call for solidarity of the international community on the North Korean issue,” Abe told reporters.

Japan said on Monday the United States, South Korea and Japan would have a trilateral summit on North Korea at the G20. Chinese President Xi Jinping will also be at the July 7-8 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called for calm and restraint, and reiterated China’s opposition to North Korea’s violation of U.N. resolutions on missile tests.

Responding to Trump’s tweet, Geng said China had for a long time been working hard to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.

“China’s contribution is obvious to all. China’s role is indispensable,” he told a daily news briefing.

China would continue to work hard and also hoped other parties would work hard too, Geng said.

“We hope all sides can meet each other half way.”

North Korea says it needs to develop its weapons in the face of what it sees as U.S. aggression.

It has conducted five nuclear tests, two since the beginning of last year, and numerous missile tests over the past year.

It often times its tests to show its defiance and to raise the stakes when it sees regional powers getting ready for talks or sanctions, analysts say.

The launch took place hours before the Independence Day celebrations in the United States. North Korea has in the past fired missiles around this time.

LAST CHANCE FOR TALKS?

Despite the unprecedented pace of tests since the start of last year, analysts have said they believed North Korea was years away from having a nuclear-tipped ICBM capable of hitting the United States.

North Korea is also trying to develop intermediate-range missiles capable of hitting U.S. bases in the Pacific. The last North Korean launches before Tuesday were of land-to-sea cruise missiles on June 8.

David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said the assessments of the Tuesday flight time and distance suggested the missile might was launched on a “very highly lofted” trajectory of more than 2,800 km.

The same missile could reach a maximum range of roughly 6,700 km on a standard trajectory, Wright said in a blog post.

“That range would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska,” he said.

South Korea’s Moon said on Monday North Korea now faced its “last opportunity” to engage in talks with the outside world.

North Korea has conducted four ballistic missile tests since Moon took office in May, vowing to use dialogue as well as pressure to bring Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs under control.

This week, North Korea was a major topic in phone calls between Trump and the leaders of China and Japan, both of whom reaffirmed their commitment to a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.

Trump has recently suggested he was running out of patience with China’s efforts to pressure North Korea.

(For an interactive package on North Korea’s missile capabilities, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2t6WEPL)

(Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Elaine Lies in TOKYO, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Ayesha Rascoe in WASHINGTON; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Robert Birsel)

U.N. urges Venezuela’s Maduro to uphold rule of law

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a gathering in support of him and his proposal for the National Constituent Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela June 27, 2017. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations on Friday criticized President Nicolas Maduro’s government for curtailing the powers of the chief state prosecutor and called on it to uphold the rule of law and freedom of assembly in Venezuela amid a clampdown on protesters.

Critics of Maduro have taken to the streets almost daily for three months to protest against what they call the creation of a dictatorship. The protests, which have left nearly 80 dead, frequently culminate in violent clashes with security forces.

Ruling Socialist Party officials have launched a series of attacks against chief state prosecutor Luisa Ortega, from accusations of insanity to promoting violence, after her high-profile break with the government.

“The decision by the Venezuelan Supreme Court on 28 June to begin removal proceedings against the Attorney General, freeze her assets and ban her from leaving the country is deeply worrying, as is the ongoing violence in the country,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva briefing.

The Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber has nullified Ortega’s appointment of a deputy attorney general, naming someone else in violation of the law, he said. It also transferred some of her functions to the ombudsperson.

“Since March, the Attorney General has taken important steps to defend human rights, documenting deaths during the wave of demonstrations, insisting on the need for due process and the importance of the separation of powers, and calling for people who have been arbitrarily detained to be immediately released,” Colville said.

The U.N. human rights office was concerned the Supreme Court’s decision “appears to seek to strip her office of its mandate and responsibilities as enshrined in the Venezuelan Constitution, and undermine the office’s independence”.

“We urge all powers of the Venezuelan state to respect the constitution and the rule of law, and call on the government to ensure the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of opinion and expression are guaranteed,” Colville said.

Maduro says the demonstrations are an attempt to overthrow him with the support of Washington.

The United Nations has received increasing reports that security forces have “raided residential buildings, conducted searches without warrants and detained people, allegedly with the intention of deterring people from participating in the demonstrations and searching for opposition supporters,” Colville said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

U.S. says ex-consultant set up meetings over Iran’s nuclear program

FILE PHOTO - Ahmad Sheikhzadeh (C), a consultant to the Iranian mission to the United Nation, leaves Brooklyn Federal Court in New York, March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Pearl Gabel/File Photo

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday that a former consultant to Iran’s mission to the United Nations recruited a United States-based atomic scientist to meet with Iranian officials about Iran’s nuclear program.

The filing regarding the former consultant, Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, does not contain criminal charges, but was made to support prosecutors’ request for a tough prison sentence for him for tax fraud and conspiracy to violate sanctions against Iran.

Sheikhzadeh pleaded guilty last November to the charges, which do not involve the Iranian nuclear program.

In the filing, prosecutors said that, starting around 2005, Sheikhzadeh helped arrange meetings between the scientist and Iran’s current president, Hassan Rouhani, previously the country’s chief negotiator on nuclear issues, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, formerly Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations.

Sheikhzadeh’s lawyer, Steve Zissou, said on Friday, “The only goal Dr. Sheikhzadeh has ever had was to improve relations between the two countries so that they could both live in peace.”

A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors did not name the scientist, who they said was an Iranian national who had worked at a U.S. nuclear power plant.

They said the scientist, working with Sheikhzadeh, provided advice to help Iran negotiate with other countries over its nuclear program. For example, they said, he gave an estimate of how many gas centrifuges – devices used in enriching uranium – Iran would need to accomplish its nuclear goals.

The scientist also helped develop Iran’s public messaging around the nuclear program, prosecutors said.

Iran reached a deal with the United States and other nations in 2015 to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the deal and in April ordered that it be reviewed.

Federal guidelines call for a sentence of up to four years and nine months for the crimes Sheikhzadeh pleaded guilty to, but prosecutors on Friday said in their filing that his “brazen” conduct warranted more than that.

Sheikhzadeh is scheduled to be sentenced on July 17 by U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen in Brooklyn. Zissou asked in a letter filed with the court on Friday to postpone the sentencing in light of the new filing.

Authorities originally charged that Sheikhzadeh under-reported his U.N. income on his personal tax returns. They also said he used his bank account to help U.S.-based co-conspirators invest money in Iran, violating sanctions.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; additional reporting by Nate Raymond; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. envoy slams U.N. Security Council for inaction on Iran

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley testifies to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on "Advancing U.S. Interests at the United Nations" in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley slammed the Security Council on Thursday for failing to take any action against Iran, which she said had “repeatedly and deliberately violated” sanctions imposed by the body.

“The Security Council has failed to even take minimal steps to respond to these violations,” Haley told a council briefing on Iran. “We must … show Iran that we will not tolerate their egregious flaunting of U.N. resolutions.”

Most U.N. sanctions were lifted 18 months ago under a deal Iran made with key world powers to curb its nuclear program. But Iran is still subject to an arms embargo and other restrictions, which are not technically part of the nuclear agreement.

U.N. political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman briefed the council on Thursday on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ third six-monthly report on the implementation of the remaining sanctions and restrictions, enshrined in resolution 2231.

“The secretary-general’s report makes clear that Iran is in violation of the Security Council resolution 2231 and so the question becomes ‘what is the Security Council going to do about it?'” Haley said.

No council members have proposed taking any action against Iran. Diplomats say veto-powers Russia and China were unlikely to agree to more measures. Russia on Thursday questioned some of the findings of Guterres’ report.

Feltman told the council that in relation to a weapons seizure by the French Navy in the northern Indian Ocean in March 2016, the United Nations was “confident that the weapons seized are of Iranian origin and were shipped from Iran.”

The report also looked at Iran’s Jan. 29 launch of a ballistic missile and noted there was no consensus within the Security Council on how the launch related to resolution 2231.

“I call upon the Islamic Republic of Iran to avoid such ballistic missile launches, which have the potential to increase tensions,” Guterres said in the report.

A year ago Guterres’ predecessor Ban Ki-moon described ballistic missile launches by Iran as “not consistent with the constructive spirit” of the nuclear deal.

Under the U.N. resolution, Iran is “called upon” to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years. Some states argue that language does not make it obligatory.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is reviewing the nuclear deal – agreed to under President Barack Obama – and Haley said that “until that review is completed we will comply with our commitments and we expect Iran to do the same.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)