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Pompeo: Our European allies are biased toward Ayatollah

August 22, 2020 at 10:25 am

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on 11 August, 2020 [Lukas Kabon/Anadolu Agency]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that his country’s European allies preferred to align with Iran’s Ayatollah, after announcing the activation of a controversial mechanism to re-impose UN sanctions on Tehran.

Pompeo pointed out that Germany, France, and Britain refused to cooperate with his country to re-impose sanctions aimed primarily at preventing Iran from arming, describing the US decision as “courageous.”

Pompeo’s statement came after the European trio announced that in 2018 when the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran, it lost the legal right to implement the “Snapback” mechanism that allows for the re-imposition of all UN sanctions on Tehran.

Washington received a heavy blow in the UN Security Council last week when only the Dominican Republic voted with it on a draft resolution to extend the UN arms embargo imposed on Iran.

The US minister emphasised that his country resorted to activating the “Snapback” mechanism after its European partners had left it “no other option” to maintain the arms embargo imposed on Iran.

READ: Pompeo likely to visit UN on Thursday in pursuit of sanctions on Iran