Nuclear deal with Iran to be killed by Trump before UN speech
Nuclear deal with Iran to be killed by Trump before UN speech
The Trump administration’s push to kill off what’s left of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran comes to a head this weekend at the United Nations, where allies and adversaries argue the US effort to restore sanctions is groundless and a diplomatic crisis is set to explode.
The US bid to restore all UN sanctions on Iran — which Secretary of State Michael Pompeo contends will go into effect on Sunday in the middle of the UN General Assembly — deepens a chasm between the US and most other nations.
Even European allies say the US has no right to invoke the accord’s “snapback provision because President Donald Trump quit the multinational deal to restrain Iran’s nuclear program two years ago.
The issue is already sowing anger and division. The US and a handful of Mideast allies are declaring the end of the nuclear deal while most other Security Council members — from Russia and China to Germany, the UK, and France — disagree with the latest example of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
“The US will obviously put pressure on others to implement sanctions,” said Ashish Pradhan, a senior UN analyst at the International Crisis Group, which argued in a report that the coming US election will decide the outcome of the dispute.
“I’m sure some of the Gulf states, Israel and others will issue some statements saying they recognize the re-imposition of sanctions. But on the UN Security Council, it seems like they’ll hold the fort.”
The US asserts that all of the UN resolutions on Iran that were in place before the 2015 deal — from a ban on arms deals to restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile activity and its nuclear enrichment — will go back into effect.
