US vows to keep presure on Iran but says not for regime change

UNITED NATIONS: The White House promised Monday to keep exerting “maximum pressure” on Iran and said new sanctions were in the pipeline while insisting that the US was not seeking the overthrow of Tehran’s clerical regime.

“As I have said repeatedly, regime change in Iran is not the administration’s policy,” national security advisor John Bolton told reporters as he previewed President Donald Trump’s week at the United Nations General Assembly.

“We’ve imposed very stringent sanctions on Iran, more are coming, and what we expect from Iran is massive changes in their behavior.”“And until that happens we will continue to exert what the president has called maximum pressure,” he said.

As a private citizen, Bolton had advocated supporting Iran’s armed opposition, a position reiterated recently by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who serves as Trump’s personal lawyer. Trump, who has warm relations with Iranian rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel, has pulled the United States out of an international agreement to constrict Iran’s nuclear program and instead has restored sanctions. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused US allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of supporting Arab separatists who killed 24 people at a military parade last week in southwestern Iran.

Pompeo hopes Turkey will release US pastor soon: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he was hopeful Turkey would release this month an American pastor whose detention has rocked relations between the NATO partners. “Yes, he could be released this month. He should have been released last month — and he should be released today, in fact,” the top US diplomat told reporters in New York where he is taking part in the UN General Assembly. Pompeo reiterated that the United States considers Andrew Brunson, who has been detained for nearly two years on terror charges, to be “wrongfully” held. “Pastor Brunson and the other US persons that are being held by Turkey all need to be released by Turkey and that needs to be done immediately,” Pompeo said. Relations between the United States and Turkey have been shaken and the Turkish lira has taken a beating over Brunson.

President Donald Trump said he has doubled tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel over Brunson’s detention, with Ankara responding in kind. Brunson, who has lived in Turkey for a quarter-century, belongs to an evangelical Protestant church and has become a cause celebre for conservative US Christians, a core base for Trump.