Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted that “the continuing threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran remains. It has violated a number of its nuclear commitments that it signed up for under the JCPOA… the most obvious thing that people see us do is the sanctions that we put in place, but the campaign is much greater than that”. Referring to the UN arms embargo expiring in October, Pompeo argued that “the Russians will be able to sell equipment to Iran. They’re lining it up. The Chinese will be able to sell tanks to Iran”. He further noted: “we are hopeful the world will unite, that the UK or other parties to the JCPOA will recognise the threat from the expiration of the arms embargo... We’d love to extend the prohibition on arm sales to Iran by agreement of all of the parties, all of the parties to the participants in [resolution] 2231. In the event that doesn’t happen, we’re going to use our diplomatic capability to prevent it from happening”.