UN chief says Iran and nine African countries in arrears on dues, could lose voting rights

United Nations chief has said that nine countries and Iran are behind in paying ir dues and might lose ir voting rights as required under UN Charter. Iran tops list and needs to pay $16,251,298 followed by Somalia which has to pay $1,443,640, Comoros $871,632, Sao Tome and Principe $829,888, Libya $705,391, Congo $90,844, Zimbabwe $81,770, Central African Republic $29,395, South Sudan $22,804, and Niger $6,733, as per a letter by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. 

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Uranium enrichment controversy 

Meanwhile, Iran has been in eye of controversies due to its uranium enrichment ambitions. An EU official supervising agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions warned that Tehran's decision to ramp up uranium enrichment could undermine efforts to keep deal alive and bring United States back on board.

According to AP reports, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that country’s aim of enriching uranium up to 20 percent at Fordo facility is a "very serious" development. He also said that it is a matter of concern as it has "very severe proliferation implications”.

Read: Iran Urges France To Avoid 'absurd nsense' Over Its Nuclear Weapons' Capacity

Last week, Iran started enriching uranium in violation of nuclear agreement, saying that it is longer obliged to respect limits laid out in pact. This is because Tehran believes that US President Donald Trump violated deal first by pulling Washington out of deal in year 2018, followed by many sanctions on Iran. deal offered ecomic incentives to Iran, however, when US sanctions were imposed, or signatories including China, France, Germany, Russia, and United Kingdom struggled to provide Iran any sort of assistance. 

In a separate development, France and Britain urged Iran to back off latest violation of its 2015 nuclear deal saying that Tehran has “ credible civilian use” for uranium metal. As per reports by AP, International Atomic Energy ncy said that Iran had informed that it had begun installing equipment for production of uranium metal. It also said that Tehran is still on its plans on conducting research and development on uranium metal production.

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_{(Im Credits: AP)}