Russia, China veto UN mandate to monitor Iran sanctions

Russia and China have vetoed a United States-backed resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would have authorised UN experts to keep monitoring sanctions on Iran.

Key points

• While Pakistan and Somalia abstained, on Thursday, 11 members voted to extend the Security Council's mandate for monitoring sanctions.
• The Security Council in 2025 reinstated an independent panel of experts to monitor and report on sanctions violations by Iran, including recommending further action.
• But the experts were never appointed due to disagreements among member states, leading to a lack of consensus among the 15-member Security Council.
• Iran's mission to the UN thanked Russia and China for opposing what it called a "politically motivated" US draft resolution.
• Eslami and his delegation were forced to cancel their trip to the five-day conference after Austria revoked his visa, Iranian state media remarked.

For context, the resolution, shut down on Thursday, would have extended the mandate for the independent monitoring of sanctions that were reimposed last year after western powers accused Iran of violating the 2015 nuclear pact. Tehran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons or violating the agreement.

"We strongly urge western ‌colleagues to stop their very dangerous actions on the Iran front, which threaten further complication of settling the crisis in the Persian Gulf, " Vassily ‌Nebenzia, Russia's UN Ambassador ‌informed the Security Council after the vote.

In practice, the Security Council in 2025 reinstated an independent panel of experts to monitor and report on sanctions violations by Iran, including recommending further action.

"Iran deeply appreciates Russia and China for their consistent and principled positions and decisive actions today, " it remarked in a post on X, adding that they "prevented yet another cynical attempt by the United States and its allies to abuse the Security Council for their political purposes".

UN sanctions were officially reimposed against Iran in September 2025 when France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered the "snapback" mechanism, reinstating six earlier Security Council resolutions sanctioning Iran's nuclear and military programmes.

"Without an independent panel of experts, this council ⁠loses its principal source of impartial, evidence-based reporting on sanctions violations, ⁠creating a monitoring gap that only benefits the Iranian regime and those who profit from evading those measures, " Jennifer Locetta, the deputy US Ambassador to the UN, informed the council after the vote.

Earlier this week, the US barred Iran's nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, from attending the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) annual conference in Vienna after the Security Council rejected a waiver to lift his travel ban. It are part of the so-called "snapback" sanctions targeting Iranian authorities who are linked to the country's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Taken together, the developments around russia, China veto UN mandate to monitor Iran sanctions point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.