A day after calling out Iran and other American adversaries at the annual U.N. General Assembly, U.S. President Donald Trump continued where he left off, leading the U.N. Security Council.
“The Iranian regime exports violence, terror and turmoil. It illicitly procures sensitive items to advance its ballistic-missile program and proliferates these missiles all across the Middle East,” he said. “The regime is the world’s leading sponsor of terror and fuels conflict across the region and far beyond.
“A regime with this track record must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon,” he stated.
The president then touted withdrawing in May from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which he blasted for advancing its nuclear and ballistic-missile program, in addition to using the $150 billion in sanctions relief that the United States gave Iran to “support terrorism” and “foment chaos.”
Trump emphasized that “all U.S. nuclear-related sanctions will be in full force by early November. They will be in full force.”
He also announced new sanctions on oil and gas, slated to begin on Nov. 4, which he said will be “tougher than ever before to counter the range of Iran’s malign conduct” in the region, especially in Syria.
Trump thanked Iran, Russia and Syria for “at my very strong urging and request, slowing down their attack on Idlib province” in Syria, where a buffer zone was established amid warnings of an assault on the area that would prompt a humanitarian crisis.