Washington 0
29 April 2020

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlighted that “it’s now just several months out where China, Russia, other countries from around the world can all sell significant conventional weapons systems to the Iranians in October of this year [when the UN arms embargo expires]”. “We’ll work with the UN Security Council to extend that prohibition on those arms sales. And then in the event we can’t get anyone else to act, the U.S. is evaluating every possibility about how we might do that”, he added. In related remarks, Pompeo indicated that “our task is to do our best to make sure those arms can’t be sold. We’re working with our British, our French partners, our friends… I think they agree with us on that. We hope the Russians and the Chinese will see it that way, too”. He also underscored that “UN Security Council Resolution 2231 is pretty clear… we are one of the participants, and the participants have the right to invoke snapback in a way that will prevent this expiration of the arms sales. It would be a good thing”.

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