“America must continue its longstanding, bipartisan leadership in order to limit Iran’s destabilizing activities throughout the world,” they added. “We look forward to working with you to reauthorize these expiring U.N. restrictions, which are essential to protecting our national security and the American people.”
As of Monday, the letter had close to 400 signatures.
“We will work with the U.N. Security Council to extend that prohibition on those arms sales. And then in the event we can’t get anyone else to act, the United States is evaluating every possibility about how we might do that,” he said.
McCaul said, “This isn’t a Republican or Democrat issue, or even just an American issue. We need to extend the U.N. arms embargo on Iran for the sake of international peace and security. I am proud the House is speaking with one voice to protect the world against Iran’s aggressive and destabilizing behavior.”
House lawmakers, urged Pompeo to work with allies to renew the arms embargo.
“We urge you to work with allies and like-minded partners, including through a new United Nations Security Council resolution, to extend these provisions in order to prevent Iran from buying and selling weapons, while also working to increase accountability for violations of the existing embargo,” they wrote. “We also urge you to make clear to the international community that U.S. sanctions on Iranian arms transfers remain in place and will be fully enforced.”
The congress members also expressed concern about the expiring U.N. travel restrictions on certain Iranian actors: “As we work to extend the U.N. travel restrictions, we should also take steps to ensure that they cover all of Iran’s most dangerous actors and are fully enforced.”
Some of Iran’s most notorious individuals “have long violated U.N. proliferation and weapons restrictions,” according to the statement. It added that keeping restrictions in place would be a way to ensure national security.
A U.S.-drafted resolution to extend the embargo has been given to the three countries, a U.S. official confirmed. But U.N. diplomats said it has not been shared with the remaining 11 U.N. Security Council members, according to Reuters.
The State Department was not immediately available to respond to The Epoch Times request for comment on the lawmakers’ letter.