New York Post

SNAPBACK-OFF , UN

Pompeo vows Iran-sanction move

- By EBONY BOWDEN and STEVEN NELSON ebowden@nypost.com

Vowing that “Nobody can stop us,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told The Post that he will travel to New York on Thursday to trigger a “snapback” of United Nations sanctions on Iran.

Pompeo (inset) said the United States can unilateral­ly use the mechanism to resurrect internatio­nal sanctions on Iran, despite the opposition of other countries.

“President Obama and John Kerry, the authors of the [Iran nuclear deal] said repeatedly that at anytime for any reason the United States could snap back sanctions and that no other nation could stop them,” Pompeo said in an exclusive interview Wednesday, shortly before Presi- dent Trump announced the “snapback.”

“Nobody can stop us. The Chinese can’t stop us. The Russians can’t stop us. The Iranians can’t stop us. We have unilateral right to do this, and we’re gonna go execute it,” Pompeo said.

The “snapback” is an aggressive move to force other countries to again sanction Iran after President Trump in 2018 abandoned former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

“I’m headed to New York to ensure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is unable to purchase and sell high-end weapon systems on Oct. 19,” Pompeo said.

“So we’ll provide notice to the United Nations that we’re going to execute our right under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to make sure that can’t happen.”

The nation’s top diplomat said that he believes the action could force an already-struggling Iran to the negotiatin­g table, and brushed off a suggestion it could make the theocratic leaders even more unstable.

“This was the argument that the previous administra­tion made: If we don’t sign this crappy deal there will be World War III — they were wrong,” Pompeo said.

He repeatedly cited Trump’s predecesso­r in the White House in justifying the move and describing what it would do.

“Precisely as President Obama described it: The snapback is a mechanism that was put in place that permits any one of the participan­ts states to say we believe they’re in noncomplia­nce to provide notice to the UN and these sanctions come back. It automatica­lly happens in 30 days from the date that we provide notice,” Pompeo said.

“There was a reason for this. The reason for this is President Obama was trying to convince the American people that what he was doing wasn’t crazy.”

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