US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is desperately trying to make the case for the use of snapback against Iran from an internationally backed deal that his boss, President Donald Trump, quit in 2018.
"This will be a fully valid, enforceable UN Security Council resolution," said Pompeo at a joint presser Wednesday, not long after the US failure in the Council to extend an arms embargo against Tehran, set to be lifted under the Iran nuclear deal in October.
The former CIA chief did not provide the precise legal justification for how the US plans to trigger snapback sanctions with US having withdrawn from the agreement.
"It has a set of provisions, it has a set of rights and obligations, and we will be in full compliance with that," Pompeo said. "We have every expectation that every country in the world will live up to its obligations, including every member of the P5, and every member of the UN that will take seriously the international commitments to which they have signed up for."
Pompeo's move to use terms of a deal his country quit in May 2018 is expected to face with opposition from other signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Germany, Britain, Russia, China and France.
The anti-Iran war hawk will meet Thursday afternoon with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at his private residence as well as with the current president of the Security Council, the ambassador from Indonesia.