Roundup: U.S., Russia divided over Iran's missile launch at UN Security Council

The United States and Russia diverged sharply on Monday over whether Iran's test-firing of two ballistic missiles last week violated a UN Security Council resolution.

The UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting on Monday to discuss the matter at the request of the United States, which claimed that the tests violated a resolution passed last year that endorsed the international nuclear deal with Iran.

The United States said it will not give up at the Security Council to take action against Iran's ballistic missile launches, which Washington believes are in defiance of provisions of the Security Council resolution.

"This merits a council response," U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told reporters here after the council meeting.

"We're not going to give up at the Security Council, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this and that, and we also can consider, of course, our own appropriate national response," she said.

Russia insists that Iran's missile launch did not violate Security Council Resolution 2231 which endorses the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal reached between Iran and six world powers, including the United States and Russia.

Vitaly Churkin, the Russian UN ambassador, told reporters that Iran's launch did not violate relevant Security Council resolutions.

"A call is different from a ban, so legally you cannot violate a call, you can comply with a call or you can ignore the call, but you cannot violate a call," Churkin said. "The legal distinction is there."

Resolution 2231 calls upon Iran not to take any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.

However, Power accused Russia of seemingly "lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act rather than stepping up and being prepared to shoulder our collective responsibility."

On March 9, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps fired two ballistic missiles, Qadr-H and Qadr-F, from East Alborz heights in northern Iran. Qadr-H missile has a range of 1,700 km while Qadr-F missile can destroy targets some 2,000 km away.

Iran's mission to the United Nations said on Monday that the country "has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons and never will in the future."

The missile tests "were part of ongoing efforts of its armed forces to strengthen its legitimate defense capabilities ... against security threats," it said in a statement.

A day after the tests, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said that the country's missile launch does not violate the UN resolution in response to the U.S. accusations.

The United States has said that the launch did not violate the JCPOA, but could have violated at least one UN Security Council resolution, warning that it would address the issue appropriately with "unilateral and multilateral tools."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that if it was determined that Iran's ballistic missile tests were in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, Tehran could face "some consequences."

The United States, in addition, voiced its concern that Iran's missile launch might be designed to be a direct threat to Israel, one of its closest allies.

Reports said the missiles were launched with "Israel must be wiped out" reportedly written in Hebrew on them.

On Saturday, Israel called on the six world powers to take "punitive measures" against Iran, saying response to Iran's missile launch "would be a test of the major powers in enforcing the nuclear agreement." Endi