U.S., UANI Warn That Ending Restrictions On Iranian Arms Will Accelerate Global Terror Campaign

New York, N.Y) – As the expiration of the United Nations (U.N.) arms embargo on Iran looms large, U.S. diplomatic officials are doubling downon efforts to rally support for extending the embargo beyond the prescribed sunset on October 18, 2020. During a diplomatic tour throughTunisia, Qatar, and Kuwait last week, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, reportedly urged regional partners to unite over theirconcern with Iranian arms transfers in order to “preclude a regional arms race and halt Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region.” In an exchangewith Asharq Al-Awsat, Hook warned that Iran – unencumbered by an arms embargo and with unrestricted access to the arms market – will accelerate instability and conflict in the region through the regime’s proxy militias and terror groups including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. 

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) Chairman Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and UANI Senior Advisor Senator Mark S. Kirk shared similar concerns in a recent op-ed in the New York Daily News, reminding readers that “America’s commitment to policies that make Iran less dangerous is bipartisan, well-established and entirely necessary.” They urge for U.S. consensus on the need to develop a security architecture that will disincentivize China and Russia from selling or transferring arms to Iran, adding that if “Beijing, Moscow and Tehran won’t wait. Neither should we.” 

UANI’s JCPOA Sunset Alert resource examines the dangers associated with – and the immediate destabilizing consequences that will occur – if the Islamic Republic is afforded the opportunity for lawful purchase, sale or transfer of advanced weaponry.

A sunset of the U.N. arms embargo will have immediate destabilizing consequences for Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Israel. Terror organizations like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, the Al-Ashtar Brigades, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis are the likely beneficiaries, and the availability of such arms to these groups may result in increases in the amount of funds regional countries necessarily allocate in their defense budgets.

To read UANI’s JCPOA Sunset Alert resource, please click here.

To read Senators’ Lieberman and Kirk’s op-ed in the New York Daily News, please click here.

###