US Envoy Claims Pressure Campaign Will Persist

The United States’ special representative for Iran claimed on Thursday that a pressure campaign of sanctions targeting Iran would persist into the administration of Joe Biden, even as the president-elect has pledged to potentially return America to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Elliott Abrams also said sanctions targeting Iran for its alleged human rights violations, its ballistic missile program and its regional influence would go on.

“That, as well as continued scrutiny by United Nations inspectors and American partners in the Mideast, would maintain that pressure,” he told AP in an interview at the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi, the UAE.

Iran has been under sweeping sanctions reimposed after the US departure from the nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It has responded by scaling back its commitments until it can enjoy JCPOA benefits once again.

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin the deal, if Iran returned to full compliance.

Abrams had earlier said the US will maintain its pressure campaign until the inauguration and anticipates it will be difficult for the future president to bring the US back into JCPOA.

“We have the maximum pressure sanctions program. It will continue in November, it will continue in December, because it’s unrelated to politics; it’s unrelated to elections.”

Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the UN, dismissed Abram’s comments.

“The policy of maximum pressure and sanctions against Iran has failed,” he told AP. “The US effort to abuse this corrupt policy is futile and will only lead to further isolation of the US on the international stage.”

President Hassan Rouhani also said on Thursday that the time for the US policy of exerting “maximum pressure” on other countries is over and this policy has failed to produce any results.

“All signs and indications in the current world, from America to Europe, show that the world has understood that the [policy of exerting] maximum pressure is not effective and its time is over,” President.ir quoted him as saying at the inauguration ceremony of a series of national projects.