LONDON: The US is putting pressure on the UK over the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran, following London’s abstention on a crucial Security Council vote last week.
The UK, France and Germany — the so-called “European 3” — all elected to abstain from a proposal by the US to bring back sanctions on Iran previously eased as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), commonly known as the “Iran Nuclear Deal” brokered by former US President Barack Obama.
The JCPoA includes the option for a 2007 UN arms embargo on Tehran to expire in October 2020, which Washington believes should remain in place, citing Iran’s failure to comply with terms agreed on its production of enriched uranium. Its arguments failed to convince the UN Security Council last week.
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The US, through its Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is now attempting a “snapback” of sanctions eased under the JCPoA on Iran. However, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPoA in 2018, calling it the “worst deal ever”. Iran and the EU argue that having left the agreement, Washington is no longer in a position to invoke such a mechanism.
The US claims that as it was listed in the resolution confirming the JCPoA in 2015, it still has the power to invoke the “snapback”. There are also suggestions that, unlike the arms embargo, the JCPoA is not legally binding.
The UK’s impassivity has since garnered an angry response from Washington. Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to the UN, told the Times Newspaper: “The central question is whether or not Britain supports allowing the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell weapons. Our administration has repeatedly stated that the US will never allow this to happen.”
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Relations between the US and Iran have deteriorated since the election of Trump in 2016. Having withdrawn from the JCPoA in 2018, in January Washington ordered the assassination of the Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike at Baghdad Airport in Iraq, in the aftermath of an attack on the US embassy in the Iraqi capital.
Last night, Trump pledged that Iran would “never” come into possession of or develop a nuclear weapon at a press conference at the White House.
A UK government spokesman said: “We share the US concern about Iranian proliferation and the impact this has on regional security.
“We have been clear that expiry of the Iran arms embargo would have serious negative implications for regional security and stability,” the spokesman said, adding: “The (arms embargo) resolution did not represent a basis for achieving consensus.”
