US urges extension of embargo on conventional arms sales to Iran

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Saturday for the UN to extend its conventional arms embargo on Iran beyond its scheduled end in October, citing Tehran´s recent launch of a military satellite.

The lifting of the embargo was stipulated in the multi-nation Iranian nuclear deal concluded in 2015, but which the United States, under President Donald Trump, unilaterally renounced in 2018.

"The world´s leading state sponsor of terrorism and anti-Semitism should not be allowed to buy and sell conventional weapons," Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday.

He said Iran´s announcement on Wednesday that it had orbited its first military satellite demonstrated that its space program -- which Tehran has long insisted is peaceful and civilian -- was in fact "neither peaceful nor entirely civilian."

Pompeo said the technology used to launch the satellite -- dubbed Nour, or "light" in Persian -- was compatible with that used to launch ballistic missiles.

"All peace-loving nations must reject Iran´s development of ballistic-missile-capable technologies and join together to constrain Iran´s dangerous missile programmes," the secretary of state said.

He called on the European Union to "sanction those individuals and entities working on Iran´s missile programs."

Pompeo´s statement came at a time of sharp US-Iranian tensions, escalated last week after Washington accused its arch-foe of harassing US ships in the Gulf.

Trump said on Wednesday on Twitter that he had "instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea."

Iran´s Revolutionary Guards, which had announced the satellite launch, responded by warning the US of a "decisive response" to any such action.