US sanctions on Iran are biting: Bolton
Iran is feeling
the effects of existing U.S. sanctions as President Donald Trump prepares to
impose more of them from Monday, his National Security Adviser John Bolton said
on Sunday during a visit to Israel.
While
flagging further sanctions, Trump also said on Saturday he wanted to make a
deal to bolster Iran’s flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions
following the shooting down of an unmanned U.S. drone by Iran.
Tensions in the region began to worsen
significantly when Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six
powers and reimposed sanctions on the country. The sanctions had been lifted
under the pact in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.
“Iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons,
its threats to exceed the limits set in the failed Iran nuclear deal in the
coming days ... are not signs of a nation seeking peace,” Bolton told reporters
during a visit to Israel.
“Sanctions are biting, and more added last
night,” he said. “Iran can never have nuclear weapons - not against the U.S.A.
and not against the world.”
Iran may further scale back compliance with
its nuclear deal unless European countries shield it from U.S. sanctions
through a trade mechanism, the head of Tehran’s Strategic Council on Foreign
Relations was quoted as saying on Sunday.
“If Europeans don’t take measures within the
60-day deadline (announced by Iran in May), we will take new steps,” the
semi-official news agency ISNA quoted Kamal Kharazi as saying.
“It would be a positive steps if they put
resources in (the planned European trade mechanism) Instex and ...make trade
possible.”
The Trump administration, with the support of
Israel and some Gulf Arab powers, has deemed the 2015 deal insufficient to deny
Iran the means of making nuclear weaponry in the long term.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, and has
been cool to U.S. suggestions of renewed negotiations.