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A six-nation bloc of Gulf Arab nations torn aside by inner strife endorsed on Sunday an extension of a United Nations arms embargo on Iran, simply two months earlier than it’s set to run out.
The Gulf Cooperation Council stated it despatched a letter to the UN Security Council backing an extension of an arms embargo that’s saved Iran from buying foreign-made weapons like fighter jets, tanks and warships.
The GCC — comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — alleged Iran had “not ceased or desisted from armed interventions in neighboring countries, directly and through organizations and movements armed and trained by Iran.”
A Saudi-led coalition continues to battle Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom the UN, the US and armament consultants have accused of receiving arms from Iran. Tehran denies arming the Houthis, whilst Iranian armaments and elements have repeatedly turned up in Yemen.
“As such, it is inappropriate to lift the restrictions on conventional weapons’ movement to and from Iran until it abandons its destabilizing activities in the region and ceases to provide weapons to terrorist and sectarian organizations,” the GCC stated.
Iran’s mission to the UN didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark on the GCC assertion.
The UN banned Iran from shopping for main overseas weapon programs in 2010 amid tensions over its nuclear program. That blocked Iran from changing its growing old gear, a lot of which had been bought by the shah earlier than the 1979 Islamic Revolution. An earlier embargo focused Iranian arms exports.
Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal noticed the UN comply with sundown the arms embargo this October. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the deal in 2018, a part of a most strain marketing campaign that’s damage Iran’s already-ailing economic system and led to a sequence of escalating incidents within the Mideast.
That the GCC supplied a unified assertion on Iran comes because it stays torn by the continued Qatar disaster, which noticed Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates reduce diplomatic ties and launch a boycott of the nation starting in 2017. Kuwait has sought to mediate the disaster, although its 91-year-old emir now’s hospitalized within the U.S. affected by an undisclosed ailment.
Amid the disaster, Qatar has had hotter ties with Iran and used its airspace whereas sharing an enormous offshore oil and gasoline subject with Tehran. The small nation is residence to the large Al-Udeid Air Base, residence to the ahead headquarters of the U.S. army’s Central Command. Oman, which noticed its long-serving sultan die earlier this 12 months, lengthy has had shut ties to Iran and has served as an interlocutor between Tehran and the West.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates lengthy have considered Iran way more suspiciously, accusing it of stirring up dissent amongst Shiite populations within the area.
The unified GCC assertion comes after current visits by outgoing US particular consultant for Iran Brian Hook amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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