Pompeo concedes issues on N. Korea, Islamic State group
UNITED NATIONS — The Islamic State has gained ground in some areas, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged Tuesday, despite President Donald Trump’s proclamation the extremist group had been vanquished.
Pompeo also conceded, in a television interview, having some frustration in dealing with North Korea.
But Pompeo said he thought the administration was finding success with the intensified sanctions against Iran that were set in motion after Trump repudiated the 2015 nuclear agreement with the country.
“We’ve put in place a set of sanctions that have denied the Iranian regime wealth,” Pompeo said in the interview, on “CBS This Morning.” In the administration’s view, he said, “that is working.”
Pompeo spoke ahead of an appearance later Tuesday at a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Middle East, where he sought to portray Iran as the region’s principal wrongdoer.
He accused Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of having “gone allin on a campaign of extortion diplomacy” to frustrate the administration’s intention to bring all Iranian oil purchases to zero, including the Iranian seizure of foreign-flagged oil tankers traversing the Strait of Hormuz last month.
There are expectations Iran will release one of those vessels, the British tanker Stena Impero, in coming days, following the release over the weekend of an Iranian tanker, the Grace 1, by the British territory of Gibraltar, despite American pressure. The vessel, which has been renamed the Adrian Darya 1 by Iran, has been reported heading to Greece.
But the State Department said Tuesday it warned Greece and other countries that the Iranian vessel was in violation of American sanctions and that any providers of assistance could be vulnerable to criminal prosecution in the United States.
The tensions between the United States and Iran have raised fears of a new armed conflict in the Middle East.
All other major powers, including the American allies Britain and France, support the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and have urged the United States to rejoin it. The agreement limited Iran’s nuclear activities in return for an end to most economic sanctions against the country.
Trump’s declarations of success in some other highprofile issues — notably in terminating the Islamic State and ending the menace of North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities — have faced increased skepticism.
Pompeo offered a mixed answer when asked about reports, including a New York Times article, on the revival of the Islamic State in the Middle East, five months after Trump declared that the group’s selfproclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq had been defeated.
“It’s complicated,” Pompeo said. “There are certainly places where (IS) is more powerful today than they were three or four years ago. But the caliphate is gone, and their capacity to conduct external attacks has been made much more difficult.”
Regarding North Korea’s threats to the United States, which Trump said he had eliminated after having met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, in Singapore last year, Pompeo also offered a mixed picture.
“We haven’t gotten back to the table as quickly as we would have hoped, but we’ve been pretty clear all along we knew there would be bumps along the way,” he said.
Pompeo also acknowledged having some frustration at the recent, repeated firing of short-range missiles by Kim’s forces, in what has been seen as a warning. North Korea, analysts say, is seeking leverage in a new round of talks that Washington hopes to start soon.
“Yes, I wish that they would not,” Pompeo said. “But in the end, Chairman Kim made a commitment to President Trump, in Singapore in June of last year, where he said he was prepared to denuclearize.”