Israel on Saturday described the UN Security Council’s rejection of a United States proposal to extend the arms embargo on Iran as “a disgrace”.
“Instead of allowing the terrorist regime in Tehran to acquire deadly weapons, the council should impose crippling sanctions on Iran,” Israel’s new UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan tweeted on Saturday.
“The council has utterly failed in its responsibility of maintaining international peace and security.
“This decision will further destabilize the Middle East, and increase the spread of violence around the world,” he added.
The Security Council on Friday resoundingly rejected the United States bid to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran.
The United States-sponsored resolution received two votes in favour, two against, and 11 abstentions, the council’s president announced.
Meanwhile, Tehran spun the UN vote as a “major political defeat” for Washington.
”For the first time in history, a United States proposal was rejected in the UN Security Council,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani claimed on Iranian television.
”This is a major political defeat for Washington,” Rouhani added.
However, although Rowhani called it a first, this overlooks times the United States has not gotten its way at the UN, notably in 2003, when it failed to win support for its invasion of Iraq.
The 13-year-old arms embargo on Iran is set to end in October, under a provision of UN Resolution 2231, in which the Security Council backed the nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers signed in Vienna in 2015.
Israel and Iran are arch-enemies. Israel accuses Tehran of continuing to work on developing nuclear weapons, while Iran threatens the existence of the Jewish state.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently described Israel as a tumour in the Middle East region that had to be excised and removed with a jihad, or holy war, by the Palestinians.
