The vote in the 15-member council was 12 in favor, with Lebanon abstaining and Brazil and Turkey voting against.
After US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice immediately hailed the vote, US President Barack Obama pointed out that the new range of nuclear sanctions on Iran did not close the door on diplomacy with the Islamic Republic
But Wednesday's vote was delayed for more than an hour after the ambassadors of Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon, three non-permanent members council members, said they had to await instructions from their governments.
The three countries finally decided to attend the meeting, but insisted on speaking before the vote to register their opposition. "We do not see sanctions as an effective instrument in this case," Brazil's UN Ambassador Maria Luiza Viotti said.
Iran's response was quick. In his first reaction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the new UN sanctions imposed on Tehran on Wednesday should be "thrown in the dust bin," the ISNA news agency reported.
For his part, Tehran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog Ali Asghar Soltanieh said that Iran will not halt its uranium enrichment activities in spite of new UN sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic. "Nothing will be changed. We'll continue without any interruption our enrichment activities," Soltanieh told reporters at the board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Turkey, meanwhile, expressed concern that the latest UN sanctions against Iran would impair diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. "Turkey is worried that the UN Security Council's decision ... will hurt diplomatic efforts and the window of opportunity for a peaceful settlement of the issue on Iran's nuclear program," a foreign ministry statement said.
While 118 countries have supported Iran's peaceful nuclear program, the US is calling the new sanctions on Iran the "most significant ever." US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the remarks during her visit to Ecuador. "These are the most significant sanctions that Iran has ever faced," Reuters quoted Clinton as saying at a news conference in the Ecuadoran capital, Quito, on Tuesday.
The United States, France and Russia have handed over to the UN atomic watchdog their official responses to Iran's proposals for a nuclear fuel swap, a diplomat close to the IAEA said Wednesday. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano met with the envoys of the three countries earlier on Wednesday, where the responses were formally handed over, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in London said the measure would pass and pave the way for tougher additional measures by the US and its allies. "The strategy here is a combination of diplomacy and pressure to persuade the Iranians that they are headed in the wrong direction in terms of their own security, that they will undermine their security by pursuit of nuclear weapons, not enhance it," Gates said.
Annexes to the resolution, agreed to Tuesday, would target 40 new Iranian companies or organizations, including 15 linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. One person was added to the previous list of 40 Iranians subject to an asset freeze, Javad Rahiqi, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center.
In New York, Mexico's UN Ambassador Claude Heller, the current council president, told reporters that the Security Council vote would take place at 10 am on Wednesday. The Security Council held a private meeting Tuesday afternoon on Iran to meet some of the concerns of Brazil and Turkey, which had called for an open "political debate" on the broader Iranian nuclear issue first.
After Tuesday afternoon's council meeting, US Ambassador Susan Rice predicted the resolution would be adopted by "a strong majority." "It is a strong, broad-based resolution that will impose meaningful and significant new sanctions on Iran," she said. "Our aim remains to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program and negotiate constructively and in earnest with the international community."
Iran's UN ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, said in an interview Tuesday with the Islamic Republic News Agency that the fuel-swap, brokered by Turkey and Brazil recently, would have led to "more constructive" regional and international cooperation, but moving ahead with sanctions shows some council members "prefer confrontation." "In such a condition ... Iran has no choice but to react accordingly in the way it consider(s) appropriate," he was quoted as saying.
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