Pompeo in Gulf: Washington’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign on Iran
US top diplomat Mike Pompeo has used a late term Middle East tour to cement Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, so President-elect Joe Biden can’t easily reverse it, AFP reported.
As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, US Secretary of State Pompeo has made containing Iran a key focus of his trip and even refused to rule out a military strike in a newspaper interview.
While Biden has signaled a return to diplomacy with Iran, Pompeo has insisted Iran is the region’s top threat, in a tour taking in Israel and the UAE and concluding in Saudi Arabia.
“This administration … is here until January 20” and will “continue to pursue its policies,” a senior US official traveling with Pompeo said during the stop in Abu Dhabi, which had followed a visit to Doha, AFP added.
“I would hope that this leverage that the (Trump) administration works so hard to get will be used to good purpose to get the Iranians to, once again, start behaving like a normal state.”
On Sunday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received Pompeo in the Kingdom.
During the meeting, they reviewed friendship relations, areas of bilateral cooperation between the two countries and ways to enhance them.
They also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and the efforts being exerted concerning them.
The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah.
It was also attended by US Ambassador John Abizaid.
Trump, unilaterally withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers over two years ago, before reimposing crippling sanctions on Tehran.
In Jerusalem, Pompeo said in a statement Washington would keep up its policy of “maximum pressure” to isolate Iran, later describing it as “extraordinarily effective.”
He has warned that the US could impose new sanctions in the coming “weeks and months,” adding to a catalogue of measures slapped on the Islamic republic in the last two years.
In an interview with the National newspaper during his stop in Abu Dhabi, Pompeo was asked whether the US was considering a military strike against Iran, after the New York Times reported that Trump had been mulling such an option over Iran’s nuclear program not long after the election.
Pompeo reportedly responded by saying that the US president “always retains the right to do what’s needed to ensure that Americans are safe.”