U.N. endorses Iran nuclear deal

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously endorsed the landmark deal to rein in Iran’s nuclear program and authorized measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions, but also approved a provision that would automatically reinstate the harsh measures if Tehran reneges on its promises.

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels immediately followed suit, endorsing the agreement between Iran and six major powers and taking the first step to lift EU sanctions.

President Barack Obama told reporters he hopes the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress, where there is strong opposition to the deal, will pay attention to the “broad international consensus,” stressing that the deal is “by far our strongest approach to ensuring that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.”

But House Speaker John Boehner accused Obama of “ignoring the concerns of the American people” by allowing “such a consequential vote” to go ahead in the U.N. just 24 hours after submitting the agreement to Congress, which has 60 days to consider it. “This is a bad start for a bad deal,” he said.

Under the agreement, Iran’s nuclear program will be curbed for a decade in exchange for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of relief from international sanctions. Many key penalties on the Iranian economy, such as those related to the energy and financial sectors, could be lifted by the end of the year.

Iran insists its nuclear program is purely peaceful, aimed at producing nuclear energy and medical isotopes, but the United States and its Western allies believe Tehran’s real goal is to build atomic weapons. Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo reiterated that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has declared nuclear weapons “Haram,” which means forbidden by the Muslim faith in Arabic.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the deal gives Iran “an opportunity to prove to the world that it intends to pursue a nuclear program solely for peaceful purposes.” But, she said, the deal doesn’t change the United States’ “profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region.”