VIENNA (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo friday called on everyone to join in the long-term US to indefinitely enlarge a U.N. arms embargo that opposes Iran.
While UN Security Council members were voting remotely on a U.S. solution to eliminate the embargo, which is expected to fail in large part, Pompeo said it is “crazy” to allow Iran to buy and sell weapons at will. Pompeo spoke long before the effects of the vote were announced, which many diplomats say will end in a disgraceful defeat for the Trump administration.
“We call on nations to urge the UN Security Council to renew the arms embargo that opposes Iran,” Pompeo said in Vienna, where it met with UN chief of nuclear surveillance, Rafael Grossi, and senior Austrian officials. “We cannot allow the world’s largest terrorist sponsor to buy and sell weapons. I mean, it’s crazy.”
The planned defeat of the solution in New York would likely pave the way for a confrontation between global powers over whether all foreign sanctions lifted under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal can or will be re-imposed.
“We urge everyone to subscribe. This is not the JCPOA,” Pompeo said, the acronym for the nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Regardless of the final results of the vote, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, led by Grossi, will continue to play a leading role in the long-term nuclear agreement, and Pompeo called on all nations to show “their support to critics.” Director-General Grossi of the IAEA.” to ensure that all countries meet their foreign nuclear safeguards needs. »
“This project is even more vital because the Islamic Republic of Iran has not answered IAEA questions about its nuclear activities,” Pompeo said. “The foreign network will have to speak with one voice: Iran will have to cooperate fully, transparently and without delay with the IAEA.”
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Grossi said Iran had not yet allowed his company to enter safe places. “I asked Iran to grant us Array,” he said. “It hasn’t happened yet, but we’re running it, we’re running it. My purpose is to ensure that this continues with the verification work, which is essential for the foreign community.”
The US solution to extend indefinitely the anti-Iran arms embargo, which expires in October under the nuclear deal from which President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018, is expected to fail largely due to European resistance and strong opposition to the government. Veto. Council members of Russia and China.
The council began voting Thursday night via email due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effects are expected to be announced on Friday night. The solution will most likely not get the minimum of nine votes in favor in the 15 members of the Security Council for Russia and China to use their veto.
U.S. officials, adding Pompeo, said that the U.S. non-extension would likely have a good reputation across the United States, and mentioned the so-called procurement procedure that would re-impose all UN sanctions lifted through the nuclear deal. Other players argued that the United States no longer has the status to invoke snapback since it withdrew from the deal, but Washington argues that it retains that right as an initial player and permanent member of the Security Council, which approved the agreement.
First, the United States issued a solution to the 15-member council to extend indefinitely the seven-page, 35-paragraph arms embargo. This week, after discussions with Council members who objected to a number of provisions, he issued a revised draft that reduced the solution to only 4 paragraphs calling for indefinite extension.
Foreign ministers from Russia and China, in separate letters to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council last month, harshly criticized the U.S. efforts to enlarge the arms embargo indefinitely. They indicated that they would veto that solution if necessary.
Diplomats from several countries still committed to the nuclear deal expressed great fear that the extension of the arms embargo will lead Iran to abandon the agreement and accelerate its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Trump again imposed crippling sanctions opposing Iran after unilaterally alienating the United States from the nuclear deal between Iran and Western powers in May 2018. Iran then responded by slowly abandoning almost every facet of the agreement, still allowing UN inspectors to access their nuclear sites. The sanctions have led to a sharp decline in Iran’s oil exports, the country’s main source of income.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has accused the United States of “economic terrorism.”
Pompeo, before his talks with Grossi, met with senior Austrian officials, adding Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, to discuss European energy independence, the security of 5G wireless networks and the threats posed through Russia and China.
The United States and Austria, like other European countries, adding Germany, disagree on many issues, adding the structure of a Russia-Germany pipeline known as NordStream 2, which the Trump administration says poses a security risk to the United States. and their allies in Europe because it will make them dangerously indebted to Moscow for energy.
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions and threatened more added sanctions on European corporations and countries involved in the near-completed project. Schallenberg said Austria “deeply regrets” the imposition of US sanctions on the pipeline, and Pompeo declared a deep war of words on the issue, saying that the two nations would possibly have to “agree to disagree.”
Pompeo is in Austria for the third stage of an excursion through 4 Central and Eastern European countries that has already taken him to the Czech Republic and Slovenia. It will close to Poland on Saturday.