US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday welcomed the Gulf Cooperation Council’s call for an extension of the United Nations arms embargo on Iran, and urged the UN Security Council to listen.
“Countries in the Middle East from the Gulf to Israel support extending the arms embargo. It is deeply important to every one of them. Arabs and Israelis are speaking with one voice and the Security Council must listen,” tweeted Pompeo.
“The GCC’s letter calling on the UN Security Council to extend the arms embargo on Iran is a bold statement. The US will introduce a resolution this week to extend the embargo after years of diplomacy. The Council must choose between arming terrorists or standing by the Gulf,” he added.
Pompeo’s comments came after the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation bloc of Gulf Arab nations, sent a letter to the UN Security Council backing an extension of the arms embargo that’s kept Iran from purchasing foreign-made weapons like fighter jets, tanks and warships.
The GCC — comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — alleged Iran had “not ceased or desisted from armed interventions in neighboring countries, directly and through organizations and movements armed and trained by Iran.”
“As such, it is inappropriate to lift the restrictions on conventional weapons’ movement to and from Iran until it abandons its destabilizing activities in the region and ceases to provide weapons to terrorist and sectarian organizations,” the GCC said.
Pompeo recently vowed to use all means available to extend the UN arms embargo. Last week he announced that the United States would put forth a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an extension of the embargo.
Iran’s UN ambassador has warned that he believes the US resolution to extend the arms embargo will be defeated and warned it would be “a very, very big mistake” if the Trump administration then tries to re-impose UN sanctions.