UN Security Council20 Sep 2018 00:37
https://www.lawfareblog.com/dmz-deal-idlib-us-tones-down-plans-confrontation-iran-united-nations-saudi-emirati-offensive-yemen
United States Backs Off Plans for Trump to Chair UN Security Council Meeting on Iran
The Trump administration has reconsidered plans for President Donald Trump to chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council focused on Iran later this month. As Mark Leon Goldberg explained for the blog UN Dispatch, “This is all made possible by a quirk of the calendar. The United States holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month… This means the United States has the opportunity to preside over a meeting of the Security Council on a topic of its choosing at a time when other foreign leaders are in town.” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced on September 4 that the United States would use its scheduling prerogative to convene a meeting “to address Iran’s violations of international law and the general instability Iran sows throughout the entire Middle East region” on September 26, the day after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly.
In the two weeks since, the administration has reconsidered the focus on Iran. The Washington Post reported on Monday that the meeting will instead be a discussion of the issues of “nonproliferation, constitutionalism and sovereignty.” While the topic of Iran might still be broached, the broader subject circumvents a UN rule that would have allowed Iranian officials to attend the meeting and respond to criticisms as a “party to a dispute under consideration,” the Post notes. Experts pointed out that the focus on Iran was sure to stoke tension with the other permanent members of the Security Council, which are still parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “I don’t think anyone [in the Trump administration] liked the idea of the president having to sit through stern defenses of the Iran deal from May and Macron. He could have got very tetchy, as he did at NATO and the G-7, or walked out of the council causing a diplomatic fuss,” Richard Gowan, a senior fellow at United Nations University, told the Post.
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