From THE JERUSALEM POST by AP and jpost.com staff, Mar. 3, 2008:
Israel welcomes the UN Security Council's approval on Monday of a third round of sanctions against Iran, the government said in an official statement.
According to the statement, the "important resolution is an unequivocal message that the international community cannot countenance Iran's nuclear program...[it] has no confidence in Iranian declarations that its nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes, and rightly so." ...
...The Security Council approved the new sanctions with near unanimous support, sending a strong signal to Teheran that its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment is unacceptable and becoming increasingly costly.
The vote was 14-0 with one abstention from Indonesia....
...For the first time, the resolution bans trade with Iran in goods that have both civilian and military uses. It also authorizes inspections of shipments to and from Iran by sea and air that are suspected of carrying banned items.
The resolution introduces financial monitoring of two banks with suspected links to proliferation activities, Bank Melli and Bank Saderat. It calls on all countries "to exercise vigilance" in entering into new trade commitments with Iran, including granting export credits, guarantees or insurance.
The resolution also orders countries to freeze the assets of 12 additional companies and 13 individuals with links to Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile programs - and require countries to "exercise vigilance" and report the travel or transit of those Iranians. It imposes a travel ban on five individuals linked to Iran's nuclear effort.
Most of the new individuals subject to sanctions are technical figures but one, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, is a prominent figure in the elite Revolutionary Guard military corps and is close to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The resolution identifies him as a former deputy chief of the Armed Forces General Staff for Logistics and Industrial Research and as head of the State Anti-Smuggling Headquarters engaged in efforts to get around previous U.N. sanctions.
Britain and France, who co-sponsored the resolution, put off the vote from Saturday until Monday to try to get four non-permanent council members who raised a variety of concerns on board - Libya, Indonesia, South Africa and Vietnam.
In the final vote, Libya, South Africa and Vietnam voted "yes" but Indonesia abstained. Diplomats credited French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited South Africa last week, for helping to sway the Libyans and South Africans.....
... the Americans and their European allies stressed that the report from the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed that Iran has continued to enrich uranium, in defiance of Security Council resolutions, and demanded that Teheran suspend its uranium centrifuge program.....
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