Pompeo to prioritise Iran in UN Security Council meeting

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will address the UN Security Council next Tuesday and focus on Iran after the recent tanker attacks near the Strait of Hormuz.

UN sources in New York told The National that Mr Pompeo will speak during a council meeting about challenges to peace and security in the Middle East.

“Our understanding is that he is coming here to talk about Iran,” said a leading member of the council.

The US Mission to the UN did not confirm Mr Pompeo’s attendance but it is understood that he will arrive in New York on Monday and speak at the UN a day later.

The appearance will be Mr Pompeo’s first at the UN since December, when he unsuccessfully urged members of the council to take action against Iran over its ballistic missile programme.

Since then the US has intensified its maximum pressure campaign against Tehran, designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation in April, a year after the Trump administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.

The State Department in June sanctioned Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before taking the same action against Foreign Minister Javad Zarif two weeks ago.

A series of incidents in the Gulf over the summer have heightened the prospect of US military action against Tehran.

The US, using video evidence, blamed Iran for attacks on several oil tankers in the Gulf, allegations that Tehran denies.

The IRGC shot down a US spy drone in June, leading the US to prepare retaliatory strikes but President Donald Trump backed down on military action.

Reports suggest Washington changed course 10 minutes before missiles were to be launched.

Concern over shipping has led Britain to join a US-led naval mission to protect vessels travelling through the Strait of Hormuz after the tanker attacks, but Germany and France have refused to do so.

Iran has said there can be no new negotiations over the nuclear deal, to which Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia are still signed up, until the US reverses its position on sanctions.

Iran has also in recent weeks started to reduce its compliance with the nuclear deal in response to the US Treasury and State Department action.