The United States has moved to restore all UN sanctions on Iran, arguing Tehran is violating a nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015 – which Washington itself abandoned two years ago.
The US submitted a letter to the 15-member UN Security Council accusing Tehran of non-compliance, starting a 30-day clock that could lead to the “snapback” of UN sanctions despite the remaining parties to the nuclear deal oppose this.
Iran was swift to condemn the call, taken partly because of the impending October expiration of a UN arms embargo on Tehran, saying the US had no right to trigger the re-imposition because it had abandoned the original agreement.
The plan to extend the embargo was decisively defeated in a Security Council vote last week, marking an embarrassing rebuke to Washington.
“It is an enormous mistake not to extend this arms embargo. It’s nuts!” the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters at the United Nations as he harshly criticised what he described as the “one-sided, foolish” nuclear deal negotiated by former US President Barack Obama.
Read the article in The New Daily.