Turkey was quick to say that "the nuclear deal with Iran makes UN sanctions unnecessary". The cold shower came pretty soon after. And it had the shape of what has been promptly called the "P5 Smackdown". So what happened? The permanent five members of the Security Council flattened Brazil and Turkey's effort at mediating the Iran crisis, sending a clear message. Big deals are going to be made by 'big boys'. So, a few hours after the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan stood on either side of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declaring that peace was nearer, thanks to the deal reached last Monday, the P5 announced a new sanctions package. Furthermore, both Russia and China, actually pushed for the package to be approved as soon as possible. The sequence of events, and even more the announcement of the new sanctions package certainly dealt an heavy blow to Turkish and Brazilian mediation attempt. In other words, with the announcement of new sanctions, the P5 sent a very clear message to the new 'mediators': you have been fooled by Iran.

The U.S. has also made it clear that the deal reached last Monday will not stop the plan to impose new sanctions. One day after the uranium swap deal was signed in Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that an agreement on a strong draft was reached with the cooperation of both Russia and China, the two countries that had so far opposed a new U.N. Security Council resolution to stiffen sanctions on Iran.

A puzzled Davutoðlu (Tukish foreign minister) said after the statement from Washington: “We cannot display understanding for talk of sanctions against Iran.”And he added that Western insistence on sanctions would harm Turkey’s interests and that the country could not allow that. 

Las Monday Iran agreed to ship 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey in return for nuclear fuel rods for a medical research reactor.