U.S. will exit Iran deal if it can’t be fixed, Pompeo says
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday hammered home his boss’s message: the U.S. will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal if the “flawed” accord can’t be fixed to its satisfaction.
“President Trump’s been pretty clear. This deal is very flawed,” Pompeo said in Tel Aviv in a joint appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “He’s directed the administration to try and fix it, and if we can’t fix it, he’s going to withdraw from the deal. It’s pretty straightforward.”
The U.S. remains “deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation threats to Israel and the region, and Iran’s position to dominate the Middle East remains,” Pompeo said. “The United States is with Israel in this fight.”
Netanyahu said “aggression” by Iran had grown “many fold since the signing of the nuclear deal” in 2015. “Iran has tried to gobble up one country after the other.”
The nuclear pact was signed by Iran, the U.S., China, France, Russia, Germany, the U.K. and the European Union. It gives Iran the ability to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. President Donald Trump has called the accord “the worst deal ever.”
On his first trip as the top U.S. diplomat after being sworn in on April 26, Pompeo spoke to reporters earlier in Riyadh and visits Amman before returning to Washington on Monday. Pompeo also visited Brussels late last week, where he also said that Trump is unlikely to stay in the Iranian deal “past this May.”
Trump set a May 12 deadline for the U.S. and Europe to address issues that aren’t covered in the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
It is essential for Gulf Arab monarchies to achieve unity, Pompeo said earlier, in an apparent attempt to resolve the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and a Saudiled coalition. He said he “stressed the importance” of Gulf unity in talks with Saudi officials.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic and transport links with Qatar on June 5, accusing the country of supporting Sunni extremist groups and Iranian-backed Shiite militants. Qatar denies the charge.
While Trump initially sided with the Saudi-led action, he and other U.S. officials later said the crisis was distracting members of the Gulf Cooperation Council from confronting regional rival Iran.
“I think they would all agree that it’s in everyone’s best interests that the Gulf States all figure out how to be together,” Pompeo told reporters after he left Saudi Arabia. “We’ve got a common challenge in Iran, I think they all recognize that. We’re hopeful that they will in their own way figure out their dispute between them.”