The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, urged the Security Council on Wednesday to adopt the Trump administration’s approach to Iran and address all aspects of its “destructive conduct” – not just the 2015 nuclear deal.
Haley told Security Council members that Iran “has repeatedly thumbed its nose” at council resolutions aimed at addressing Iranian support for terrorism and regional conflicts while illegally supplying weapons to Yemen and Hezbollah forces in Syria and Lebanon. Haley warned members that Iran “continues to play the council. Iran hides behind its assertion of technical compliance with the nuclear deal while it brazenly violates the other limits of its behaviour, and we have allowed them to get away with it.”
Haley warned that “Judging Iran by the narrow confines of the nuclear deal” risked missing the “true nature of the threat.”
The UK’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Jonathan Allen, reiterated that “the UK remains committed to the JCPOA and its full implementation by all sides. We believe that preserving the JCPOA is in our shared national security interest.” Allen said that the UK encourages “careful consideration of security implications of the US and its allies before taking steps that might undermine the JCPOA such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran lifted under the agreement.”
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon used his speech to warn against Iran’s influence in the region and said that “Iran seeks to destroy Israel by any means necessary. It has tried to obtain nuclear capabilities for years. Today, the regime’s intentions are no different than before.”
Iran’s Ambassador, Gholamali Khoshroo said, “The new US administration approach and the recent dangerous strategy toward the (nuclear) deal and Iran run counter to all of these efforts and intend to add another crisis to the regional issues.”
Yesterday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Tehran would keep the 2015 deal as long as other signatories respected it, but would “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out.
U.S. President Donald Trump did not certify last week that Iran was in compliance with the nuclear deal, giving Congress 60 days to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran that were lifted as part of the accord.
(via BICOM)
[Photo: BICOM ]