Europeans seeking at UN to water down criticism of Iran's rights record. For EU, business above all.

"As President Donald Trump prepares to announce whether he'll certify Iran's compliance with the deal to curb its nuclear program, U.S. and European negotiators at the United Nations are on another collision course - this time over the Islamic Republic's human rights record.

The U.S. is pushing for tougher language condemning Iran for human rights violations in the draft of a UN resolution that's typically taken up every year, but allies -- including some in Europe -- are pushing back, just as they are in defending the nuclear accord that Trump has called 'the worst deal ever.'

While both sides want to criticize Iran on human rights, they disagree over how far to go and whether to give President Hassan Rouhani some credit, according to notes on the draft shared with Bloomberg News...

The world 'must also continue to hold Iran responsible for its missile launches, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of UN Security Council resolutions,' Haley said in August after Rouhani threatened to abandon the nuclear deal if Iran faced more sanctions.

European allies, including the U.K. and Germany, have stood behind the nuclear accord, saying inspections by the IAEA show Iran is abiding by it. Behind the scenes, some diplomats are trying to find a way to 'give Trump a win' by endorsing some of his criticism of Iran while containing any threat to scuttle the agreement, according to a diplomat from a Security Council nation who asked not to be identified describing internal discussions.

In the UN discussions over the human-rights resolution, U.S. allies don't want to undercut Rouhani, who they see as a relative moderate besieged by hard-liners in Tehran. But they don't want to be seen as defending Iran's human rights record...

Critics of Rouhani, including the U.S., say he hasn't delivered on promises of greater respect for civil and political rights since his May re-election. Last year, Iran conducted at least 567 executions, many for drug-related offenses, according to Amnesty International. An additional 247 people were executed in the first six months of 2017, according to a UN report.

The nuclear deal has had little positive impact on human rights in the country, said Shirin Ebadi, the exiled Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate...

The resolution faces a committee vote next month before going to the General Assembly in December. Last year, 85 countries voted to condemn Iran's human rights violations while 35 countries, including Russia and Syria, voted against doing so. An additional 63 countries abstained."