UNITED NATIONS, July 16 (Itar-Tass) - Russia does not see an alternative to the diplomatic settlement of the situation around the Iranian nuclear program and it speaks against the unilateral sanctions, which some nations have introduced in Iran, Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Pyotr Ilyichov said Monday as he took the floor at a session of the UN Security Council.
“We don’t see any alternative to the political and diplomatic settlement,” he said. “Efforts in that area should proceed from the principles of stage-by-stage consistency, reciprocity and conformity to the Nonproliferation Treaty.”
Ilyichov said along with it that “collective actions of the world community as regards the solution of problems related to Iran’s nuclear program are undermined by unilateral sanctions.
He recalled that “these sanctions have an exterritorial character in some cases and this is absolutely inacceptable from the angle of view of international law.”
Monday, UN Security Council heard a report by the Australian ambassador, Gary Quinlan, who chairs the committee on sanctions against Iran.
Quinlan said, among other things, that the committee continues scrutiny of last year’s launches of Shahab-1 and Shahab-3 missiles.
He admitted, though, that the member-states of the committee - and Russia and China have seats on it, too - do not have unanimity of opinions on whether or not the launches had encroached on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1929 forbidding any activities under Iran’s missile program.