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Trend Commentator: Iran’s nuclear "isolation" in international arena found irreversible character

Politics Materials 10 June 2010 17:37 (UTC +04:00)
The UN Security Council adopted another resolution, which imposes new sanctions on Iran in connection with its refusal to reduce its uranium enrichment activities.

Trend Commentator Polad Hamidov

The UN Security Council adopted another resolution, which imposes new sanctions on Iran in connection with its refusal to reduce its uranium enrichment activities.

But Iran's ruling elite considers the UN sanctions just routine actions of the West. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the sanctions "a paper napkin, with which wiped mouth and threw into the trashcan".  

Twelve of 15 members of the UN Security Council voted for the document, but Turkey and Brazil voted against, and Lebanon abstained from voting. Russia and China also supported the sanctions, despite the fact that traditionally called for the tempered attitude towards Iran.

The Iranian Government's attempts to prevent sanctions and late assignments were not crowned with success, although "paralyzing" economic sanctions were deleted from the draft resolution. That is a tripartite agreement on the exchange of the Iranian uranium on Turkish territory signed by Iran, Turkey and Brazil in May led to a certain easing of tension around the Iranian nuclear issue. Thus, Iran has enlisted the support of Turkey and Brazil, which do not possess nuclear weapons.

Ankara's reactions on adopting the resolution were quite adequate. The Turkish Foreign Ministry called adoption of the resolution by the UN Security Council "wrong". "There are fears that this decision will create difficulties in resolving the situation around the Iranian nuclear program through diplomatic ways," - the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

This is the fifth resolution adopted by the UN Security Council for Tehran's reluctance to fulfil international demands regarding its nuclear program. The four previous resolutions adopted in the period from 2006 to 2008. Given the fact that the initiator of these sanctions is the U.S. a two-year break after the final resolution is due the global financial crisis and Obama's attempts to improve relations with the Islamic world.

During all this time, the U.S. attitude towards Iran has not changed. However, Iran also did not abandon its nuclear program. That is the Obama's administration has made a tactical change in relations with Tehran, leaving the strategic goals unchanged. It is no accident that in the U.S. new national security strategy, promulgated last month, political theses against Iran remained unchanged.

Support for sanctions by Russia and China can "offend" Iran very much. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's refusal to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to be held  June 10-11 in Tashkent, can be regarded as a "silent protest" of Tehran in response to Russia and China's positions in the UN Security Council.

Iran, having observer status in the SCO, has always been a member of this organization. That is, the Islamic Republic tries to find strong allies, who are against to unipolar policy in the world. Given the fact that the United States' geopolitical interests have long been introduced in the region, it's not excluded the possibility of transforming the SCO into a strong anti-NATO military-political bloc. Iran's joining to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization can only accelerate this process, but the organization is not yet ready to be expanded to such a scale. It seems that Moscow and Beijing do not want to be in hurry to accept new members.

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