by AP, Yoni Hersch, Shlomo Cesana, Daniel Siryoti, Eli Leon and Israel Hayom Staff
Nikki Haley takes Security Council members on field trip to Washington, urges global effort to punish Iran for non-nuclear violations
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U.S. Ambassador to
the U.N. Nikki Haley's tweet from Monday
about Iranian weapons
violations
Photo: Twitter
U.N.
Security Council member states need to set aside the 2015 nuclear
agreement between Iran and world powers and focus on cracking down on
Iran's missile and other non-nuclear transgressions, U.S. Ambassador to
the U.N. Nikki Haley said on Monday.
Haley took fellow ambassadors from the
Security Council member states on a field trip to Washington and
suggested that a concerted global effort to punish Iran for violations
of Security Council resolutions on ballistic missiles could
persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to keep the nuclear agreement
intact.
Trump has previously threatened to pull out
of the Iran nuclear deal, which sought to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions
in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Haley said that France, a key member of the
group that negotiated the nuclear deal, had recently "started hitting"
Iran with criticism for violating ballistic missile resolutions.
Haley tweeted: "We brought the Security
Council to D.C. to see first-hand evidence from the Department of
Defense of Iran's illegal weapons program. These violations cannot
continue."
The tweet included Defense Department photos of weapons stamped "Made in Iran."
"It's working," Haley said after meeting with Trump and the other ambassadors.
"They [the Secutiry Council members] are
starting to realize, 'If we don't start talking about the violations, if
we don't call them out, then the U.S. is going to say this whole thing
is a sham.'"
With little hope of renegotiating the
nuclear deal, Trump's administration has instead been looking to
add stipulations to the U.S. law on the deal so that sanctions, waived
as part of the deal, can be reimposed if Iran presses forward with
non-nuclear activity deemed unacceptable by the U.S.
China and Russia, two Security
Council members that helped negotiate the nuclear deal, have been
particularly reluctant to impose additional conditions on Iran, and have
cast doubt on U.S. allegations that Iran is funneling weapons to Houthi
rebels in Yemen who have been using those weapons against U.S.
allies such as Saudi Arabia. Haley said that skepticism came across as
these countries' ambassadors viewed the missile parts on display in
Washington.
"The Chinese just took notes. The Russians questioned the missiles, how they got to Yemen," Haley said.
"How do you dispute this?" Haley asked the
Russians. "It's got 'Made in Iran' welded on it," she said, showing the
markings on the missiles.
During the one-day visit, Haley and
national security adviser H.R. McMaster took the ambassadors to the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum and to lunch at the White House with Trump.
At the lunch, discussions focused on hot-button issues such as Syria,
North Korea, and terrorism.
Meanwhile, two days after Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a
Russian delegation led by the head of the Russian Federation's Security
Council, Nikolai Petrochev, was due to arrive in Jerusalem.
Journalist Barak Ravid reported on Channel
10 News that the delegation will include several high-ranking Russian
officials, including the deputy foreign minister, deputy internal
security minister, deputy justice minister, as well as generals and
other senior military officials.
The delegation is visiting Israel to strengthen bilateral ties.
In his meeting with Putin this week, Netanyahu discussed scenarios of potential regional escalation.
AP, Yoni Hersch, Shlomo Cesana, Daniel Siryoti, Eli Leon and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/01/31/un-ambassador-to-un-iran-weapons-violations-cannot-continue/
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