US’ Iran envoy quits ahead of crucial UN vote on arms embargo
Special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, will add Iran to his responsibilities
The top US envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, is leaving his post and US special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, will add Iran to his role “following a transition period” with Hook, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.
Hook’s surprise departure comes at a critical time when Washington has been intensely lobbying at the UN to extend an arms embargo on Iran and as the UN Security Council prepares to hold a vote on the US. resolution next week.
“We’re going to continue to make the case for this,” Hook told reporters hours before his departure was announced. “We hope that the council can find a way.”
No reasons for exit
Pompeo did not give a reason for the change but wrote in a tweet that Hook was moving on to the private sector. He described him as a “trusted adviser and a good friend” who had achieved “historic results” in countering Tehran and securing the release of US citizens detained by Iran.
Architect of sanctions
Hook, 52, was appointed to the top Iran role at the State Department in late 2018 and has been instrumental in Washington’s intensifying pressure campaign on Tehran after Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Hook’s departure “does not concern us and is not something we consider as a gamechanger,” Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s mission to the UN in New York, said.
“The so-called ‘maximum pressure’ campaign waged by the US government has failed.”