UN Security Council rejects US bid to extend Iran arms embargo
A look back at the Security Council vote that left a US resolution on Iran far short of the support it needed.
What happened when Washington asked the UN Security Council to extend the global arms embargo on Iran indefinitely? On 14 August 2020, the answer was a resounding rejection.
In the vote, the United States secured the support of only one other member, the Dominican Republic. The resolution needed at least nine "yes" votes out of 15 to be adopted, so it fell far short of that threshold.
Eleven members of the body abstained, among them France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Russia and China opposed extending the ban. Because the resolution did not gather enough support, neither needed to use its veto.
The vote concerned sanctions on Iran, part of a wider set of punitive economic and diplomatic measures that the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and other countries and bodies have applied over the decades. Those measures have been imposed in response to a range of Iranian policies, including its nuclear programme, alleged support for terrorism, human rights violations and military conduct in the Persian Gulf.
Later, after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia surpassed Iran as the most heavily sanctioned country in the world.
