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Pompeo: Many Countries Are Leaving Iran to Avoid Sanctions

Pompeo: Many Countries Are Leaving Iran to Avoid Sanctions

By Staff Writer

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on September 16 that “many countries are taking actions to leave Iran” to avoid the “different set of rules” that would apply to “anyone who wants to engage in economic activity with the regime in Iran” following the second round of US sanctions against Iran on November 4.

These sanctions, largely targeting Iran’s oil export and banking system, are part of the US’s new tough policy on the Iranian Regime, following the American withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal on May 8.

On Monday, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic agency, told a UN nuclear watchdog meeting that the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal is “doomed” to significantly affect Middle East peace and security, but did not elaborate on what the repercussions might be.

Donald Trump, who was a big opponent of the nuclear deal whilst on the campaign trail in 2016, pulled out earlier this year because he said that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) failed to prevent Iran’s “destructive” measures. He said that it had not stopped, for instance, Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Still, all the other signatories to the deal remain committed to the deal and are trying to protect Iran from the US sanctions, although ultimately they may be forced to comply with the US or face sanctions themselves.

While on Saturday, Pompeo tweeted a stern criticism of the meeting between former Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, telling Kerry to let the nuclear deal go.

Pompeo wrote: “What John Kerry has done by engaging with Iran’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 tweet on Saturday, said, “JCPOA didn’t stop all paths for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, contrary to the way it was sold to the American people.”

Tehran has said that its missile programme is peaceful, which is a contradictory phrase, and that there are no plans to stop it. Iran has refused to take part in a fresh round of negotiations with the US to get a better, stronger nuclear deal in place. But US officials are also concerned about Iran’s “support for terrorism” and regional interventionism.

So, the sanctions will go ahead and Trump wanted to bring Iran’s oil exports down to zero by November, which has caused many Iranian oil customers to reduce or eliminate their oil imports altogether.