Russia: We no longer need to comply with UN restrictions on Iran’s missile technology

Russia said it no longer needed to abide by UN Security Council restrictions on providing missile technology to its ally Iran once they expire on Wednesday, without clarifying whether it now intends to support Iran’s missile program.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that supplies to and from Iran of products subject to the Missile Technology Control Regime no longer require prior approval from the United Nations Security Council.

The restrictions were set in Resolution No. 2231 of 2015, which ratified the nuclear agreement, under which Britain, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States lifted sanctions imposed on Iran in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear program.

In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump announced the US withdrawal from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and kept US sanctions in place unilaterally, after which Iran accelerated its nuclear program, which it says is intended only for peaceful purposes.

With the collapse of the agreement, the United Nations re-imposed sanctions aimed at preventing Iran from developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but these restrictions will expire on Wednesday.

Russia has strengthened ties with Iran since invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Many of the hundreds of attack drones that Russia used to bomb Ukraine last year are believed to have been manufactured in Iran.

The European Union said on Tuesday that it intends to join the United States in maintaining sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program after the end of UN sanctions.

Sources had previously told Reuters that there were three reasons for this: Russia’s use of Iranian drones against Ukraine, the possibility of Iran transferring ballistic missiles to Russia, and the need to deprive Iran of the benefits of the nuclear agreement, which it violated after the United States’ withdrawal.

Russia urged the European Union and the United States to drop their sanctions, which it said were an attempt to settle political scores with Tehran and have no effects on other countries that treat international law and their obligations with due respect.