From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
American UN ambassador blasts ‘very flawed’ Iran nuclear deal
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleThe US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, goes on the offensive against the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, calling it “very flawed and very limited.”
In an address to the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Haley — amid Republican efforts to back out of the deal and ahead of an assessment of Iran’s compliance by US President Donald Trump — says that Tehran’s dovetailing with the deal’s requirements on “uranium enrichment and centrifuges” is distracting from the ways in which it is still thumbing its nose at the international community, including pursuing future nuclear capabilities.
“The deal drew an artificial line between the Iranian regime’s nuclear development and the rest of its lawless behavior,” she says, also noting the continued arming of the Hezbollah militia and Hezbollah’s previous attacks against American and Israeli targets.
She faults the deal, and the previous US administration, for enabling the continued development by Iran of long-range missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads.
“When the nuclear agreement was signed, the Obama Administration took Iran’s non-nuclear activity – the missile development, the arms smuggling, the terrorism, the support for murderous regimes – and rolled it up into one UN Security Council resolution – 2231,” she says, according to a transcript of her speech posted on the American Enterprise Institute’s website.
“Critically, included in this supposed ‘non-nuclear’ activity is the IRGC’s ongoing development of ballistic missile technology. You can call it ‘non-nuclear’ all you want – missile technology cannot be separated from pursuit of a nuclear weapon,” she says.
You can watch the speech and a subsequent discussion here:
The Times of Israel Community.