UNITED NATIONS, March 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia hopes that ill-considered steps by some of its partners in the sextet of international mediators (five permanent UN member-states plus Germany) will not harm the operation of that international machinery, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said at a meeting of the Security Council devoted to the Iranian problem.
“We do hope that ill-considered actions by some of our partners in the sextet will not cause forcible discoordination of this important mechanism,” Churkin said. The Russian envoy pointed out that at the current “delicate phase the international community’s efforts must be subordinated to the task of promoting a productive negotiating process between the sextet and Iran.”
Churkin said that UN committee for sanctions against Iran should act with utmost precision, in a balanced and objective way in the interests of advancing a political and diplomatic settlement of the situation regarding the Iranian nuclear dossier.
At the Security Council’s session a number of countries called for tightening sanctions against Iran. They accused Teheran of arms supplies to Syria, Yemen and Palestinian militants in violation of the existing embargo, as well as the refusal to cooperate on the missile program.
Britain’s permanent representative Mark Lyall Grant called upon all member-countries to observe the regimen of actions and to report all possible cases of its violations.
He also urged a probe by UN Security Council experts on Iran into the suspicion of Teheran’s complicity in organizing arms supplies to Gaza, in particular, the detention of a ship carrying a cargo of rockets early this month, to identify the legal entities and individuals responsible and to present its recommendations to the committee, if necessary.
US deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo said the UN Security Council’s committee should be prepared to take real measures, including sanctions against those responsible.