Washington – The Trump administration and members of Congress are working on a new set of nuclear-and missile-related Iran sanctions that would replace the 2015 nuclear agreement, Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview.
Under the agreement, the Islamic republic is permitted to resume nuclear weapons development after ten years.
“The reality is the Iran nuclear deal was so ill founded because… by only being a ten-year agreement, it virtually guaranteed that they would develop a nuclear weapon after that ten year period of time,” Pence told the Voice of America.
Pence said that President Donald Trump will again refuse to certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement later this month, as the president did in October.
The 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S., Russia, Germany, France, China and the United Kingdom required that Iran roll back parts of its nuclear program for ten years in exchange for sanctions relief.
Pence said the Trump administration and Congress are developing legislation that would immediately re-impose all nuclear- and missile-related sanctions if Iran resumes attempts to develop an atomic bomb and missiles to deliver a bomb.
When asked how tougher U.S. sanctions would affect a wave of anti-government protests in Iran, Pence said present penalties against the Islamist regime were emboldening the people with courage to step forward.
NAN reports that the nuclear deal framework was a preliminary framework agreement reached in 2015 between
Iran and the P5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., UK, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany) and the EU.(Sputnik/NAN)
