Pompeo: We’ll do everything to extend arms embargo on Iran

“In the event we can’t get anyone else to act, the United States is evaluating every possibility about how we might do that,” Pompeo told reporters.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that the U.S. will use every means available to extend a UN arms embargo on Iran. He said the U.S. wouldn’t let the embargo expire in October.

“We will work with the UN Security Council to extend that prohibition on those arms sales and then in the event we can’t get anyone else to act, the United States is evaluating every possibility about how we might do that,” Pompeo told reporters at a press conference.

The UN embargo includes the export to Iran of technology that could be used in nuclear weapons development, the export of arms from Iran and the export to Iran of conventional weapons.

The U.S. has handed a draft resolution to extend the embargo to Britain, France and Germany. “We are urging our E3 partners to take action. This is within their capacity to do,” Pompeo said of those three countries.

Reuters reports that UN diplomats said the other 11 UN Security Council members, including Russia and China, have not seen the draft document.

Ending the arms embargo was a provision built into the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of July 14, 2015, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal.

It stipulated that the UN Security Counil would remove sanctions in Oct. 2020 after receiving a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirming that Iran is conforming to that deal regarding its nuclear program.

The U.S. exited the nuclear deal in 2018. Iran gradually began pulling away from it as well, enriching uranium beyond the limits imposed by the agreement. After the U.S. killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran said it would no longer abide by any of the limits of the deal.

Such statements by Iran would appear to provide a strong argument for America’s position. “There’s nothing magic about this,” Pompeo said.

“We’re going to make sure that come October of this year, the Iranians aren’t able to buy conventional weapons that they would be, given what president Obama and Vice President Biden have delivered to the world in that terrible deal,” he stressed.