WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump faces deadlines related to the deal starting late this week, including deciding whether to reimpose oil sanctions lifted under the 2015 agreement.
Meanwhile, retired US military officers, members of Congress and former US ambassadors were among 52 US national security experts who signed a letter released on Monday urging Trump not to take any step that might undermine peace in the Middle East.
Signers of the letter, organized by the National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon, included Richard Lugar, a former Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Paul O’Neill, who served as Treasury secretary under Republican President George W. Bush; Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, and Admiral Eric Olson, former commander of Special Forces.
“We support the rights of Iranian citizens to free speech and peaceful protest and we condemn the use of force against peaceful demonstrations,” the letter said.
“In responding to developments in Iran, now and in the future, the US should be careful not to take any steps that might undermine the JCPOA (nuclear agreement) which remains vital to US national security,” it said.
Trump faces deadlines over Iran deal
Trump faces deadlines over Iran deal
UN votes to end mission in Yemeni city of Hodeida
- The resolution approved Tuesday, which was sponsored by Britain, stipulates that the UN mission in Hodeida — known as UNMHA — must close as of March 31
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council voted Tuesday to terminate a mission that tried to enforce a ceasefire in war-torn Yemen’s port city of Hodeida.
“Houthi obstructionism has left the mission without a purpose, and it has to close,” said Tammy Bruce of the US delegation, one of 13 on the 15 member council to support ending the mission’s mandate.
The UN mission is now scheduled to conclude in two months.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government is a patchwork of groups held together by their opposition to the Iran-backed Houthis, who ousted them from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and now rule much of the country’s north. They also hold Hodeida.
The Houthis have been at war with the government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
Since 2021 the Houthis have periodically detained UN staffers and still hold some of them.
The resolution approved Tuesday, which was sponsored by Britain, stipulates that the UN mission in Hodeida — known as UNMHA — must close as of March 31. It has been there since 2019.
Russia and China abstained from the vote.
“For six years, UNMHA has served as a critical stabilizing presence” in the region and “actively deterred and prevented a return to full scale conflict,” said Danish representative Christina Markus Lassen.
“The dynamics of the conflict have evolved, and the operating environment has significantly narrowed as UN personnel have become the target of the Houthis’ arbitrary detentions,” Lassen said.
The war in the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula has triggered the worst humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world, the United Nations says.
It expects things to get worse in 2026 as hungry Yemenis find it even harder to get food and international aid drops off.
