Pompeo calls it ‘just nuts’ to allow Iran to trade in arms as U.N. vote nears
The Security Council is expected to reject the U.S. proposal to extend the ban, because Europeans fear it will push Iran to abandon the nuclear deal. As permanent members, Russia and China, which oppose continuing the ban, also have veto power on the 15-member council.
Pompeo is in Vienna, where he was meeting Friday with Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA is empowered with monitoring Iran’s compliance with its commitments under the deal. The IAEA’s inspectors have continued to have access to Iranian nuclear facilities even as Iran has gradually stepped back from its promises by exceeding limitations on its nuclear program in response to tightening U.S. sanctions.
Iran’s economy is reeling from U.S. sanctions imposed since Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, and the Security Council vote could be the death knell for the entire nuclear agreement that lifted punishing sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran accepting limits on its nuclear program. But a clause in the deal lifts the arms embargo in just two months, and Trump administration officials have expressed alarm it could allow Iran, which has ties to militant groups in other countries, to threaten the entire region.
“We can’t allow the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell weapons,” Pompeo said at a news conference Friday just before he headed to his meeting with Grossi. “I mean, that’s just nuts.”
Pompeo rejected the notion that the vote on the U.N. arms embargo on conventional weapons is a proxy vote for the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“We’re urging the whole world to join us,” Pompeo said. “This isn’t about the JCPOA. This is about whether the world is going to allow Iran to buy and sell weapons systems.”
Pompeo said the United States would employ “everything we can within our diplomatic tool kit” to stop Iran from buying weapons that the United States has said could be deployed against Israel and other U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.
“We hope that we’ll be successful; when we see the results, we’ll decide what to do,” he said.
