Though he has been looking for opportunities to promote himself as a dealmaker on the world stage as he campaigns for reelection, President Donald Trump finally decided that he won’t come in-person to deliver his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday next week.
Like most world leaders amid covid19 constraints, he will deliver his remarks to the 75th UNGA opening session virtually.
A big focus of his remarks is likely to be his administration’s claim—refuted by 13 of the other 15 members of the UN Security Council—that it has “snapped back” UN sanctions on Iran.
Trump’s special representative for Venezuela and Iran Elliott Abrams, speaking to reporters this week, previewed a big administration show of force to claim the snapback of UN sanctions on Iran coming into force on Saturday night at 8 pm.
“As you know, virtually all UN sanctions on Iran will come back into place this weekend at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday the 19th,” Abrams told reporters on a State Department call Wednesday.
“The arms embargo will now be re-imposed indefinitely and other restrictions will return, including the ban on Iran engaging in enrichment and reprocessing-related activities, the prohibition on ballistic missile testing and development, and sanctions on the transfer of nuclear and missile-related technologies to Iran.”
“We expect all UN member states to implement the UN sanctions fully,” Abrams continued.
Abrams, who added the Iran portfolio to his Venezuela duties this month, denigrated the other world powers that continue to support the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—that Trump quit in 2018 as having an “almost religious commitment” to it, and urged them to “recognize…reality and join us in imposing sanctions on Iran.”
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