Saudi, US force for extension of Iran arms embargo
US and Saudi officials possess needed extending a UN arms embargo on Iran, warning of key implications for regional reliability, accusing Tehran of arming Yemeni rebels.
The embargo, put in place within a nuclear accord signed with Tehran in 2015, is defined to expire in October but Washington is attempting to extend the ban as tensions using its arch-rival remain high.
Lifting the ban could "embolden" Tehran and may trigger a regional arms race, US Particular Representative for Iran Brian Hook told reporters in Riyadh.
"This is simply not an outcome that the UN Security Council may accept," Hook said at a joint media conference with Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of point out for foreign affairs.
At the conference venue, Saudi officials displayed remnants of intercepted missiles and drones they said were given by Iran to Yemen's Huthi rebels.
Iran denies arming the rebels.
The Huthis have recently targeted Saudi cities, like the capital Riyadh, with some missile and drone strikes.
"Iran seeks to supply weapons to terrorist organisations. Exactly what will happen if the embargo is definitely lifted?" Jubeir said.
"Iran will become more... extreme," he added.
Before this month, a UN statement said cruise missiles and drones found in attacks this past year on Saudi oil services were "of Iranian origin".
The attacks on Saudi condition oil giant Aramco's facilities caused extensive damage and briefly interrupted production of 50 % of the country's essential oil output.
Hook said later found in Bahrain that if the hands embargo expired, Iran can acquire advanced arms and pose a larger threat to Gulf reliability and international shipping.
"It'll trigger an arms competition in one region that requires it the least," Hook said in his second leg of the Gulf tour to garner support for extending the arms embargo on Iran.
Allowing the UN hands embargo to expire will be a betrayal of the secureness council's responsibility of retaining international peace and secureness, he said.
The US official also said that the embargo has constrained Iran's capability to freely maneuver weapons to its proxies.
Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayyani expressed his country's total support for extending the hands embargo on Iran, accusing Tehran of continuing to provide hands to militias in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
US Secretary of Status Mike Pompeo warned last week of a go back of UN sanctions on Iran if the Security Council fails to extend an embargo.
France, Britain and Germany, which all still support the nuclear offer, also have said they reinforced extending the embargo.
No date offers been scheduled for a vote on the image resolution and it is unlikely to move, as veto-wielding China and Russia have previously spoken out against extending the embargo.
Iran agreed with key world powers in 2015 to freeze its nuclear program in return for the lifting of punishing international sanctions.
But in 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the arrangement and reimposed sanctions, prompting Iran to roll rear its own commitments. -- AFP
