The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Iran is seeking “quick relief” from United Nations (UN) sanctions, placing a new stumbling block in the way of a nuclear agreement with the P5+1 nations by the time the current deal runs out on November, 24.
The bloc, consisting of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany, prefers to wait until later to remove the U.N. penalties, which were imposed between 2006 and 2010. But in recent weeks, Iran’s negotiators have shifted ground and pressed for quicker relief from the U.N. measures.
Iran wants the sanctions lifted in part to strip away the international legitimacy of the unilateral U.S. and European penalties, analysts say. That would help remove a wound to Iran’s national pride and make it easier for Tehran to tell key oil-importing nations — such as China, India and Turkey — that they can ignore the threat of penalties and resume oil purchases.
The Times notes that although the UN-imposed sanctions are not as severe as the United States and European Union sanctions, which cut off Iran from the international banking system, “the U.N. sanctions are intrusive, authorizing U.N. member states to inspect Iranian cargo and banning sales of arms and so-called dual-use equipment that could be used to build nuclear arms or weapons of mass destruction.”
Notably, while Iran is seeking to undo the sanctions regime currently in place, it is also regularly violating it.
Reporting today in The Jerusalem Post, Benjamin Weinthal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies writes that German authorities found that Iran is regularly violating UN sanctions by purchasing nuclear technology.
According to the report, the German custom’s criminal investigation unit (ZKA) said Iran’s regime over the last few months sought components for its nuclear program in Germany. “We continue to observe criminal nuclear proliferation activity, “ said ZKA President Norbert Drude.
Iran employs front companies to disguise its illegal purchases, noted the ZKA, adding that the front companies and personnel were used in dozens of cases by Iran to obtain sanctioned economic goods. Iran was successful in some cases.
In 2012 and 2013, over two-thirds of the customs violations investigated by Germany involved the sale of dual use technology to Iran. The number of cases reported in 2014 is consistent with those of recent years.
The UN sanctions were initially put in place due to Iran’s violations of six UN Security Council resolutions, and removing them would undermine the sanctions regime. Iran already successfully diluted their legal importance by having their obligations in the Joint Plan of Action described as “voluntary.”
In Iran is *Really* Good at Evading Sanctions, published in the September 2013 issue of The Tower Magazine, Emanuele Ottolenghi outlined how Iran has exploited weaknesses of the sanctions regime:
It is far less clear, however, whether the sanctions that the U.S. and the West continue to impose have actually had the desired effect of actually stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program, or in creating the needed pressure on the regime to force a different risk/reward calculus. There is no doubt that it is harder than ever for Iran to acquire the means and technologies it needs to continue developing its military nuclear weapons program, but there is also overwhelming evidence that the regime continues to find increasingly arcane means of doing so. In particular, the regime exploits a variety of loopholes and the openness of Western societies to procure banned technology.
[Photo: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äusseres / Flickr ]