Bolton threatens more Iran sanctions, but adds US not seeking regime change

US National Security Adviser John Bolton says he believes Iran will return to the negotiating table in response to the United States’ “maximum pressure campaign,” referring to growing financial sanctions on the Islamic Republic and its leaders.

“They’ll either get the point or as the president said, we will enhance the max pressure campaign further,” he says, following a trilateral meeting with Israeli and Russian national security advisers in Jerusalem.

Seen as a hawk on Iranian issues, Bolton adds that the White House is not seeking regime change in the Islamic Republic. “That’s not the policy of the United States,” he says, acknowledging that as a private citizen he has called for this.

Speaking at a press conference, Bolton says the US is working with Russia in an effort to counter Iran in the region, especially in Syria where they threaten Israel.

The US national security adviser says Moscow also sees the removal of Iranian forces from Syria as a positive step necessary for the war-torn country’s reconstruction, despite his Russian counterpart’s remarks in an earlier press conference that Syria can keep foreign fighters in its borders for as long as it wants.

“The Russians have said repeatedly that they would like to see Iranian forces leave,” Bolton says, citing comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent meeting in Moscow.

He says with this trilateral meeting, the countries are working to “find a way to make it happen.”

— Judah Ari Gross