DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A six-nation bloc torn by internal conflicts approved an extension of a United Nations arms embargo opposed to Iran two months before it expires.
On Sunday, the Gulf Cooperation Council sent a letter to the UN Security Council supporting an extension of an arms embargo preventing Iran from having foreign-made weapons such as fighter jets, tanks and warships.
The GCC – consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – argued that Iran “had not ceased or renounced armed interventions in neighbouring countries, and through armed and trained organizations and movements through Iran.”
A Saudi-led coalition continues to fight Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom the United Nations, the United States and arms experts have accused of receiving weapons from Iran. Tehran denies arming the Houthis, although Iranian weapons and parts have made the impression several times in Yemen.
The letter said Iran is arming Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Syria and supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq and “terrorist groups” in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“UN. The restrictions build consensus on the risk to peace and stability posed by Iranian proliferation,” the GCC said in the letter signed by Secretary-General Nayef al-Hajraf on behalf of the bloc.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi condemned the GCC’s letter and called it “irresponsible” serving U.S. interests, Iran’s state television reported.
Mousavi also criticized the Persian Gulf countries for being “among the largest arms buyers in the region and the world,” even amid the economic recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The United Nations banned Iran from buying foreign primary weapons systems in 2010 amid tensions over its nuclear program. This prevented Iran from replacing its old equipment, much of which had been bought by the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A pre-Iranian arms embargo.
Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal caused the UN to agree to lift the arms embargo in October. President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, as a result of a high-stress crusade that has damaged Iran’s already-suffering economy and sparked a series of escalated incidents in the Middle East.
The GCC charter also discussed Iran’s downsman of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January and his army accidentally killed 19 sailors in a missile attack and an exercise. Iran is also suspected of launching an attack in September on the center of the Saudi oil industry, although Tehran denies it.
The GCC’s offer of a unified declaration on Iran comes when it continues to be torn apart by the crisis in Qatar, which has noticed that Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates cut off diplomatic relations and launched a boycott of the country since 2017. Kuwait has tried to mediate the crisis, its 91-year-old emir is now hospitalized in the United States and suffers from an unhealed disease.
In the midst of the crisis, Qatar stays warmer with Iran and uses its airspace while sharing a vast offshore oil and fuel box with Tehran. The small country is home to the huge Al-Udeid Air Base, home to the U.S. Army Central Command headquarters complex. Oman, who saw his former sultan die this year, has long had close ties to Iran and serves as an interlocutor between Tehran and the West.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have long seen Iran with far more distrust, accusing it of inciting the dissent of Shiite populations in the region.
The GCC’s unified statement comes after visits by outgoing U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, amid the pandemic. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received the letter Monday morning.
“The United States will provide a solution this week to enlarge the embargo after years of diplomacy,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter. The Security Council “must arm terrorists or status alongside the “CCG.
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Associated Press Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to the report.
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