Iran has been “the world’s central banker for terrorism since 1979”, Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton has said during a fiery press conference today.
He also indicated the US would be highly reluctant to offer any waivers to countries seeking to buy oil from the Islamic Republic.
And the hawkish appointee of current US President Donald Trump also took a swipe at the administration of his boss’s predecessor with a clear implication that Barack Obama had been soft of terror.
Mr Bolton has kept up a steady stream of rhetoric in the direction of Tehran in recent days, yesterday describing it as a “rogue regime” as the US officially terminated the bilateral Treaty of Amity signed with Iran in 1955.
Prior to this, he called for an investigation into Israeli claims of a “secret atomic warehouse” within the Islamic republic, and warned President Hassan Rouhani there would be “hell to pay” if they harmed the US or its citizens.
His latest speech was delivered as he unveiled his country’s latest counterterrorism strategy in Washington.
Speaking to reporters in Washington today, Mr Bolton said Iran was “the world’s central banker of international terrorism since 1979”.
He said said the administration’s aim was to force all importers of Iranian crude to cut their purchases to zero.
The United States plans to impose new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector on November 4 with the aim of stopping Tehran’s involvement in conflicts in Syria and Iraq and bringing the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table for its ballistic missile program.
He added: “It’s our objective that there be no waivers from the sanctions that exports of Iranian oil and gas and condensates drops to zero.
“I’m not saying we’re necessarily going to achieve that but no one should be operating under any illusions what the objective is.”
“You can look at the possibility of reductions leading to zero, it doesn’t have to happen immediately perhaps.”
Addressing the wider issue of terrorism, he added: “Radical Islamist terrorist groups represent the pre-eminent transnational terrorist threat to the United States and to the United States’ interests abroad.”
Source » express