US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is flanked by US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft as he speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the UN Security Council about Iran at United Nations headquarters in New York, August 20, 2020. (AFP photo)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the United States is prepared to block Russia and China from any attempts to violate sanctions against Iran.

Pompeo made the remarks in an interview on Friday, a day after the US moved to restore the UN Security Council’s sanctions against Tehran.

The top US diplomat also said that Washington was disappointed that its allies did not support the American effort to push for a snapback of UN sanctions, including an arms embargo against the Islamic Republic.

On Thursday, Pompeo said Washington’s European allies were siding with the Iranian leadership after they said the US could not reimpose sanctions on Iran.

The United States’ most prominent Western allies refused to fall into step with its push to snap back the United Nations sanctions against Iran.

The United Kingdom, France, and Germany said the US did not have the legal right to trigger snapback sanctions because it pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

They said they could not support the US move, describing Washington’s action as incompatible with efforts to support the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Reuters reported.

The trio announced their position in a statement in response to an illegal US push to invoke the mechanism in the nuclear deal that would restore all of the UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, whose related resolutions were annulled after the agreement was concluded.

Delivering the unilateral US approach its next blow was China’s UN mission that reminded that Washington had itself compromised all of its contractual rights under the nuclear deal.

Neither did a letter presented to the world body by Pompeo to trigger the snapback module qualify for the purpose it has been written for, the mission noted in a tweet.

Pompeo on Thursday said the United States will do everything it can to enforce United Nations sanctions on Iran if they are violated.

He told reporters at the United Nations it would be an enormous mistake not to extend the arms embargo on Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister has said that the US administration’s attempt to snap back the UN Security Council’s sanctions against Tehran will result in nothing but another disgrace for US President Donald Trump.

Last night Pompeo activated the mechanism of returning the annulled Security Council resolutions in his imaginations, Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a post on his Instagram account on Friday.

However, he added, at the same time Iran, Russia, China, the European Union, Germany, France, and the UK described the Trump administration’s move as unlawful, futile, and null and voice in separate letters.

Today, some other members of the Security Council will likely adopt similar stances, and the Trump administration will be isolated and disgraced globally once again, Zarif said.

The history of the Security Council does not remember any similar situation, he noted, referring to an almost global consensus against Trump.

On Friday, the UN Security Council almost unanimously refused to support a US-sponsored draft resolution on extending the arms embargo against Iran, which is due to expire in October under the JCPOA.

During the 15-member Security Council vote, the US received support only from the Dominican Republic for its anti-Iran resolution, leaving it far short of the minimum nine yes votes required for adoption.

Russia and China, both veto-wielding powers and parties to the JCPOA, voted against the draft resolution and the remaining 11 Security Council members, including France, Germany and Britain, abstained.

SOURCE: PRESS TV