Suddenly Israel Wants Peace Talks

UN Unanimously Ratifies Iran Nuclear Deal and the US Congress needs to review it and approve it.

The highest decision making body of the United Nations unanimously adopted on Monday a resolution that will allow the entry into force within 90 days of the recent agreement between Iran and five other western nations, including China, the US, France, Britain, Russia and Germany.

According to the text, seven UN resolutions on Iran -and with them many sanctions- will cease to be effective as soon as the International Atomic Energy Agency verifies that the country has met certain essential conditions included in the agreement.

Among other things, Iran must dismantle in the coming weeks two thirds of its centrifuges and reduce its enriched uranium reserves, about 12,000 kilos to 300 kilos.

According to the terms negotiated, Tehran will dispose of nuclear material which is estimated to be “enough to produce about ten atomic bombs” according to the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power.

After checking those first steps, most of the sanctions imposed on Iran in the last few years will disappear.

However, some measures against Iran will remain in force, including the arms embargo, which will be kept for five years, and the import ban on compounds for ballistic missiles, which will last eight more years. In addition, the Security Council established a new mechanism for placing sanctions back if Tehran violates the pact.

According to the text, if the Board receives a complaint of non-compliance, sanctions will be reapplied within 30 days, unless the highest body of the UN votes a resolution that says otherwise. The system prevents that no country uses its veto power to prevent the reintroduction of punishments.

Pressure on the US Congress

Monday’s approval was taken for granted, but the ways and times of the vote have bothered some members of the United States Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats who do not support the nuclear agreement complained that the UN vote should have taken place after the US Congress could vote it or reject it.

The argument was that the adoption by the UN put pressure on the US Congress to decide whether President Barack Obama can lift the sanctions on Iran.

The Obama administration has tried to mediate in this clash of legitimacies between the Council of the UN in New York and Congress in Washington.

Lawmakers have 60 days from Monday to review the agreement, although the Vienna document will not take effect until 90 days after the UN vote. That month margin was a demand for US negotiators to meet with Congress, explained on Sunday the US Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Asked about the Council vote, Obama said on Monday that Congress should trust and “pay attention” to the “broad consensus” of the international community and that of experts.

On Sunday, in an interview with ABC, Kerry argued that, despite the UN vote, lawmakers have broad ability to analyze the agreement. The veteran former senator considered “presumptuous” to think that the other signatory countries -Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China- have anything to tell the US Congress regarding how to vote.

Republican Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio criticized on Monday that US security was “outsourced” to the UN and that Obama looked for the “seal of approval from Russia and China to agree before members of the Administration could explain the agreement to Congress “.

New Peace Talks

While most of the international community is backing up the nuclear agreement with Iran, Israel is supposedly carrying out efforts to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians. That is what the Minister of Interior of Israel, Silvan Shalom, said on Monday.

“We would like to resume talks immediately and unconditionally,” said the minister during a meeting with a group of journalists, in which he said that “there have been some recent efforts”, though he declined to elaborate.

The last negotiation process between Israelis and Palestinians sponsored by Washington ended without results in April 2014.

Shalom’s statement coincided with a visit to Israel by US Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, who also defended the Iranian nuclear agreement.

“We are trying to see how to proceed,” said Shalom, after mentioning that the Palestinians are demanding what he called “goodwill gestures”. He then criticized the Palestinians for conducting “unilateral acts” like going to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to denounce Israeli actions.

Peace negotiations were largely derailed by Israel’s refusal to halt construction in Jewish settlements and since then, the Palestinian leadership has signed accession treaties to dozens of international agencies, including the ICC, seeking international recognition and the judgement of Israeli military operations which are considered by many crimes of war.

Luis R. Miranda is an award-winning journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief at The Real Agenda. His career spans over 18 years and almost every form of news media. His articles include subjects such as environmentalism, Agenda 21, climate change, geopolitics, globalisation, health, vaccines, food safety, corporate control of governments, immigration and banking cartels, among others. Luis has worked as a news reporter, on-air personality for Live and Live-to-tape news programs. He has also worked as a script writer, producer and co-producer on broadcast news. Read more about Luis.