ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States will allow several Russian, European, and Chinese companies to continue working at Iranian nuclear facilities without placing sanctions on Tehran, the State Department announced on Monday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed Iranian nuclear cooperation waivers, despite the administration's harsh rhetoric against Tehran.
“Iran’s continued expansion of nuclear activities is unacceptable. The regime’s nuclear extortion is among the greatest threats to international peace and security,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.
"We will continue to closely monitor all developments in Iran's nuclear programme and can adjust these restrictions at any time," added Ortagus.
Since the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal two years ago, Washington has imposed crippling sanctions on the Iranian economy, targeting senior officials in the Iranian government and security forces.
Washington says that Iran is involved in maligned activities across the region and its nuclear programme is intended for the development of weaponry.
Officials told Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Pompeo had initially opposed extending the waivers.
However, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly persuaded him to renew the waivers, arguing that it was in the best interest of the administration which was being criticised for not easing sanctions on the country hardest-hit by coronavirus in the region.
The landmark 2015 nuclear deal was signed between Iran on the one side and US, Russia, Germany, France, UK and China on the other. The deal was designed to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief.
However, the deal began to unravel in May 2018 when US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the deal unilaterally, arguing the agreement did not guarantee Iran would not obtain nuclear weapons and that Iran was destabilizing the Middle East through armed proxy groups across the region. Trump has said more than once that the deal needs to be renegotiated to include Iran’s ballistic missiles program and regional behavior.
The global financial dominance of the US dollar has meant the deal’s European, Russian and Chinese signatories have been able to do little to alleviate pressure on Iran’s economy from Washington’s crushing sanctions.
In response, Iran has begun a gradual abandonment of its commitments to the nuclear deal - moves that Iran has argued are reversible if sanctions relief is provided.
Tehran announced in January that it would no longer comply with restrictions on nuclear enrichment, the latest move in undermining the landmark deal.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have spiked following the US drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iran’s retaliatory fire of ballistic missiles at US bases in January.
The United States has deployed Patriot air defense batteries to Iraqi bases to protect American troops recently targeted by Iranian missiles, US and Iraqi military sources told AFP Monday.
Washington has blamed the attacks on Iran-aligned elements of the Hashd al-Shaabi, a military network formally integrated into Iraq’s security forces.
