In response to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's remarks on Friday the U.S. Department of States Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said Iran's threats will only further isolate the country.
In his Friday Prayer sermon Khamenei said the elite Revolutionary Guards could take their fight beyond Iran's borders.
"As long as the regime threatens the world, it will become more isolated," Hook told reporters in a briefing. "Until Iran behaves like a normal nation its isolation will only deepen," he added.
Hook, also told reporters that the United States was sanctioning an IRGC brigadier general in the latest U.S. action against Iran for committing gross human rights violations against protesters in Mahshahr in the south of the country in November. He added that the decision was made possible thanks to the information the State Department has received on a tipline established by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The State Department has so far received over 88,000 tips and uses the information to expose the criminality of the regime and to hold human rights violators accountable, Hook said and called on all nations to join the United States in sanctioning Iranian officials for human rights violations.
The U.S. Department of States Special Representative for Iran called the upcoming Iranian parliamentary elections a "charade" meant to deceive the world and pose Iran as a republic.
Regarding the nuclear agreement of 2015 (JCPOA) between Iran and world powers including the United States, which President Trump withdrew from unilaterally in 2018, Hook said there isn't much left of the agreement to preserve and pointed out that the dispute resolution mechanism triggered by France, Britain and Germany could lead to the reinstatement of UN sanctions.
Hook also announced that the State Department will encourage its embassies around the world to actively engage with the Iranian diaspora and said the Iranian regime is facing a legitimacy and credibility crisis that is expected to deepen in 2020.
