President Donald Trump has announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will activate a controversial mechanism aimed at re-imposing UN sanctions on Iran, and escalate a series of European allies that have enormous consequences for the Iranian nuclear deal.
Pompeo will travel to New York on Thursday to report to the UN Security Council that the US is triggering the so-called “snapback” procedure, which Britain, France and Germany say it has no right to do.
“It’s a snapback, not unusual,” Trump told reporters, despite the controversial measure never being used before.
The move comes after the United States suffered a humiliating defeat at the Security Council last week when it failed to gather support for a resolution to extend a conventional arms embargo on Iran.
“Snapback” aims to restore all international sanctions against Iran that were lifted as part of the 2015 agreement with Tehran that sought to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
But it also threatens to torpedo Iran’s historic nuclear deal that the US, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany signed in 2015 with Tehran.
Trump withdrew the US from the agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018 and introduced US sanctions on Iran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign against the Iranian regime.
Despite withdrawing the deal, the United States claims that, as a “participant” of the original agreement, it has the power to unilaterally impose UN sanctions on Iran.
A 2015 UN Security Council resolution 2015 ratifying the agreement, negotiated by former President Barack Obama, says participating states could unilaterally reinstate sanctions if Iran fails to significantly pursue the agreement.
The “snapback” procedure is intended to lead to the reinstatement of sanctions after 30 days, without the possibility of Russia or China exercising their fetuses.
European Security Council countries have challenged the US legal argument and feared that the imposition of sanctions would undermine the nuclear deal they are fighting to save.
“This will be [a] fully valid enforced UN Security Council resolution. “We have every expectation that it will be upheld just like any other UN Security Council resolution in place,” Pompeo said.
Last week, only the Dominican Republic arrived in the United States in support of its call to extend a conventional arms embargo on Iran that expires on October 18.
The embargo expires under the terms of JCPOA. Although European countries have expressed concern about the lifting of the 13-year embargo, their main focus is on maintaining the nuclear agreement.
The vote highlighted how isolated the US is about Iran at the UN.
Experts say the snapback threatens to plunge the Security Council into crisis.
“Most of the council will abandon the US argument that it reserves the right to trigger snapback despite the JCPOA. They will dismiss this process as a disgrace, “said UN expert Richard Gowan.
“The real winners in this process will be China and Russia, which claim to be defending the UN against US unilateralism, while the Europeans keep their distance from Washington,” added Gowan, who works in the International Crisis. Group think tank.
Pompeo is scheduled to meet UN boss Antonio Guterres in New York on Thursday as they discuss Iran.
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