US triggers 'snapback' mechanism to reimpose sanctions on Iran

“The United States makes this notification to the Council only after substantial efforts have been made by Member States to remedy Iran's significant non-performance,” Pompeo and Craft noted.

By OMRI NAHMIAS
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council about Iran's alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft listens at U.N. (photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR/POOL)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council about Iran's alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft listens at U.N.
(photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR/POOL)
WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft formally requested that UN reimpose sanctions on Iran, as a part of the “snapback” mechanism of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The decision to invoke the snapback mechanism is following the security council’s rejection of an American proposal to extend the arms embargo on Iran, which is set to expire on October 18.
Last week, eleven out of 15 members of the council abstained in the vote to extend the arms embargo, while Russia and China opposed the measure, and two countries, the US and the Dominican Republic supported.
“The United States makes this notification to the Council only after substantial efforts have been made by Member States to remedy Iran's significant non-performance,” Pompeo and Craft noted in their letter to the security council. “Yet despite extensive efforts and exhaustive diplomacy on the part of those Member States, Iran's significant non-performance persists. The United States is therefore left with no choice but to notify the Council that Iran is in significant non-performance of its JCPOA commitments,” they added.

The two mentioned Iran's enrichment of uranium above the JCPOA's limit of 3.67 and Iran's accumulation of an enriched uranium stockpile “in excess of 300 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride or the equivalent in other chemical forms in non-performance of paragraph 7 of the JCPOA's main text.”
“Iran's conduct of uranium enrichment activities that are not in line with its long-term enrichment and enrichment research and development plan,” the US letter reads.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said that reimposing the UN sanctions on Iran is a critical step to curbing Iranian aggression, which threatens the entire world.
“The Security Council should not allow the world’s largest terror regime to obtain and trade lethal weapons and ballistic missiles freely. Nor should it pave the way for Iran to fulfill its nuclear ambitions. Now is the time for the international community to act decisively and impose crippling sanctions on Iran. Not to reward its malicious aspirations," he said.
The Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, responded to the American letter and said: "We don't take it that the US has either legal right or reason to initiate this thing. Besides, there are provisions both of the resolution 2231 and at the JCPOA that provide for steps on how to do it, which were not exhausted yet. Of course we will challenge it."