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

The United Nations chief has said that nine countries and Iran are behind in paying their dues and might lose their voting rights as required under the UN Charter. Iran tops the 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. 

Read: Iran Warns Of Expelling United Nations Nuclear Inspectors If US Doesn't Lift Sanctions

Uranium enrichment controversy 

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

According to AP reports, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the country’s aim of enriching uranium up to 20 percent at the 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 Nonsense' Over Its Nuclear Weapons' Capacity

Last week, Iran started enriching uranium in violation of the nuclear agreement, saying that it is no longer obliged to respect limits laid out in the pact. This is because Tehran believes that US President Donald Trump violated the deal first by pulling Washington out of the deal in the year 2018, followed by many sanctions on Iran. The deal offered economic incentives to Iran, however, when US sanctions were imposed, the other signatories including China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom struggled to provide Iran any sort of assistance. 

In a separate development, France and Britain urged Iran to back off the latest violation of its 2015 nuclear deal saying that Tehran has “no credible civilian use” for uranium metal. As per reports by AP, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran had informed that it had begun installing equipment for the 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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