US tells UN: strikes degraded Iran's capacity to build nuclear weapon

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities "effectively fulfilled our narrow objective: to degrade Iran's capacity to produce a nuclear weapon," acting U.S. envoy to the U.N. Dorothy Shea told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday.

"These strikes – in accordance with the inherent right to collective self-defense, consistent with the U.N. Charter – aimed to mitigate the threat posed by Iran to Israel, the region and to, more broadly, international peace and security," Shea told the 15-member council.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the strikes over the weekend "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities. Earlier on Tuesday he announced that a ceasefire between Iran and Israel had started.

"I think it's still early to assess all the strikes. We know we were able to push back the (nuclear) program. We were able to remove the imminent threat that we had," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters on Tuesday.

The U.N. Security Council met on Tuesday to discuss implementation of a resolution adopted in 2015 to enshrine Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.

Trump quit the deal in 2018, during his first term, and restored all U.S. sanctions on Tehran. In response, Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the accord.

U.N. political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council on Tuesday that the objectives of the Iran nuclear deal and the U.N. resolution "have yet to be fully realized," adding: "This is regrettable."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Kanishka Singh and Daniel Wallis)