IRAN, RUSSIA BLAST U.S. PRESSURE

‘AN OUTLAW BEHAVIOR’ I think probably over the next couple weeks we’ll identify which nations have the political will to support that initiative and then we’ll work directly with the militaries to identify the specific capabilities that’ll support that

VIENNA, Austria — Iran and Russia on Wednesday poured scorn on America’s call for Tehran to adhere to limits in a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, at a special meeting of the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

The meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was requested by the US after it was confirmed last week that Iran had exceeded the stockpile of enriched uranium permitted under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The US Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna Jackie Wolcott told the meeting that Iran was engaged in “nuclear extortion.”

Iran has said it will disregard certain limits under the JCPOA as long as the remaining parties to the deal — in particular the UK, France and Germany — don’t do more to mitigate the impact of crippling US sanctions re-imposed after President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in May 2018.

“There is no way to read this as anything other than a crude and transparent attempt to extort payments from the international community,” Wolcott said.

Her Iranian counterpart Kazem Gharib Abadi said it was a “sad irony that this meeting is convened with the request of the United States.”

Gharib Abadi said the current impasse was the result of the Washington’s “outlaw behavior” and condemned what he called the “sadistic tendency” of the US to impose sanctions on Iran.

Russia’s Ambassador to the IAEA Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted after the meeting that the US “was practically isolated on this issue.”

In Washington, the US is hoping to present a united front at a time when its hawkish policy has aggravated tensions and key allies are at loggerheads as it seeks a coalition at sea to monitor Iran.

General Joseph Dunford, the top US military officer, said the US would take the commanding role and provide surveillance as other countries escort vessels under their own flags. “I think probably over the next couple weeks we’ll identify which nations have the political will to support that initiative and then we’ll work directly with the militaries to identify the specific capabilities that’ll support that,” Dunford said Tuesday.

He said the coalition would operate both in the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint to the Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s oil flows — and the Bab el-Mandeb, the crucial shipping line into the Red Sea off war-battered Yemen.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron’s top diplomatic advisor met with Iran’s president Wednesday winding up a day of talks in Tehran aimed at saving a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and easing tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The 2015 accord between Iran and world powers, the JCPOA, promised sanctions relief, economic benefits and an end to international isolation in return for stringent curbs on the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

But Tehran says it has lost patience with perceived inaction by European countries more than a year after Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the agreement and started to impose punishing sanctions.

US Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna Jackie Wolcott told the meeting that Iran was engaged in nuclear extortion.