Israel disappointed by UNSC vote on Iran

Israel was disappointed to see Britain, France, and Germany not support the US proposal to extend an arms embargo on Iran, Tel Aviv’s foreign minister said yesterday.

“We were disappointed to see our friends, the E3 countries, not voting to extend the arms embargo on Iran and thus prevent its adoption,” Gabi Ashkenazi said during a meeting with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

“The E3 countries must understand that the concern for regional stability and preventing Iran’s arming is a global interest. The global effort to stop Iranian aggression has to be expressed in deeds, not only in declarations. There’s time to correct. I call on all countries to join the US demand to restore the sanctions mechanism on Iran,” Ashkenazi added.

The two ministers also discussed commercial and political relations after Britain’s exit from the European Union, in addition to regional issues, including the Iranian threat, the situation in Lebanon and Hezbollah as well as the normalisation agreement signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“The historic agreement with the UAE is evidence that peace can be achieved through direct dialogue between countries … We hope that more Middle Eastern countries will join this step,” Ashkenazi said.

On 13 August, US President Donald Trump announced a peace deal between the UAE and Israel brokered by Washington.

READ: Gulf State to host US-brokered peace summit soon

Abu Dhabi said the deal was an effort to stave off Tel Aviv’s planned annexation of the occupied West Bank, however, opponents believe normalisation efforts have been in the offing for many years as Israeli officials have made official visits to the UAE and attended conferences in the country which had no diplomatic or other ties with the occupation state.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on 17 August that annexation is not off the table, but has simply been delayed.