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Pompeo Hails Success Of Sanctions While Iran Says It 'Dooms' The Region


Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listens to a question as he testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 25, 2018, during a hearing on diplomacy and national security.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listens to a question as he testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 25, 2018, during a hearing on diplomacy and national security.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a September 16 tweet, "many countries are taking actions to leave Iran" as "a different set of rules" would apply to "anyone who wants to engage in economic activity with the regime in Iran”.

Secretary Pompeo was referring to the arrangements that would be enforced after the second round of sanctions on Iran take effect starting from November 4 and will target Iran's oil export and banking system.

The sanctions are part of U.S. measures against Iran following Washington's withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran on May 8.

Meanwhile, Iran’s atomic chief, Ali Akbar Salehi told an annual U.N. nuclear watchdog meeting on Monday that the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal is "doomed" to seriously affect peace and security in the Middle East.

Salehi, a veteran negotiator with the West, did not elaborate on what those repercussions might be.

President Donald Trump had said both during his election campaign and after his victory in the elections that he opposed the deal with Iran and deemed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to be against the United States' national interests and its security as the deal cannot prevent Iran's "destructive" measures in the region and the world.

The JCPOA, he said, has not stopped Iran's ballistic missile program.

This comes while U.S. European allies and most democrats in Congress support the Iran nuclear deal. Nevertheless, European governments and almost all U.S. politicians have protested Iran's activities in the region and its missile program.

Former US President Barak Obama has criticized President Trump and said that the Iran deal has set back Iran's nuclear program and that it was not supposed to end all of the problems between Tehran and Washington.

Only one day before this new tweet, Pompeo had commented about the news of new meetings between former Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, saying that "What John Kerry has done by engaging with Ira’s regime, the world’s top state sponsor of terror, is unseemly, unprecedented, and inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy. The deal failed. Let it go."

​In another September 15 tweet, Pompeo said, "JCPOA didn’t stop all paths for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, contrary to the way it was sold to the American people."

One of the major arguments of US officials against Iran is about its "support for terrorism." Iran on the other hand has ruled out sponsoring terrorism, saying that it does not intervene in other countries' internal affairs.

Tehran, however, has insisted that its missile program is a peaceful one and that it is not planning to stop it.

Meanwhile, Tehran has still not agreed to take part in a fresh round of negotiations with the Trump administration to discuss what Washington calls a catalogue of measures by Tehran.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has officially "forbidden" negotiations with Washington.

In the meantime, Washington has vowed to minimize Iran's oil export with the aim of bringing it down to nil. Some observers have doubted whether this could be practical as China will apparently continue to purchase Iran's oil.

Among other major customers, India has reduced its oil import from Iran, while Japan and South Korea are trying to replace alternative sources for their oil imports.

Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif has threatened the EU that Tehran might increase the percentage of its Uranium enrichment while still remaining in the JCPOA, if EU fails to find a practical way to ensure Iran's continued oil export and international banking operations to collect its revenues.

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