WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 08: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 08, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump vowed to hold back funding for the World Health Organization at the briefing, accusing the organization of having not been aggressive enough in confronting the virus, but later walked those comments back saying he had been misquoted, according to published reports. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) In July 1 remarks to reporters, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the United Nations to extend the arms embargo on Iran indefinitely.
Pompeo said the arms embargo, which has been in place for 13 years, will expire this year as a result of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal; the United States exited from the deal in 2018. He argued that if the embargo is allowed to expire, the Iranian government will be able to better arm authoritarian regimes and terror organizations.
“Tehran will become an arms dealer for the [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduros and [Syrian President Bashar al] Assads of the world,” the Secretary of State said. “Sworn enemies of Israel like Hamas and Hezbollah will be better armed. European nations will be put at risk.”
On June 30, Pompeo told members of the U.N. Security Council on a June 30 Zoom call that recent report from the U.N. secretary-general found “that weapons used to attack Saudi Arabia in September 2019 were of Iranian origin. The report has also confirmed the weapons interdicted off the coast of Yemen in November of 2019 and February 2020 were of Iranian origin.”
“This council cannot simply hope that Iran acts in good faith, given its indisputable fact pattern,” he later added. “The council must hold Iran accountable. And we all have the chance to do so.”
Pompeo has suggested that if the embargo isn’t renewed, the U.S. could invoke what’s known as “snapback” sanctions, meaning that U.N. sanctions lifted under the Iran deal could be re-imposed if Iran violates the deal. The U.S. has argued that even if it has exited from the deal, the administration still can invoke this portion of the deal, since the U.S. was an original signatory to the deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly urged the U.S. to go down this route. “ I don’t think we can afford to wait,” Netanyahu told U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook in a June 30 meeting in Jerusalem. “We should not wait for Iran to start its breakout to a nuclear weapon because when that, happens it will be too late for sanctions.”
However, other members of the U.N. Security Council, such as China and Russia, argued against extending the embargo during the June 30 call and rejected the findings of the secretary-general’s report. They also argued the U.S. doesn’t have standing to invoke snapback sanctions since the Trump administration exited from the Iran deal. Christoph Heusgen, Germany’s ambassador to the U.N., similarly argued that the U.S. no longer has any power to invoke snapback sanctions and that the U.S. violated international law when it exited from the Iran deal.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif rejected the allegations that Iran has violated the arms embargo, referring to them as “self-serving allegations and forged documents.”
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