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US vows to up Iran pressure but says not after regime change
UNITED NATIONS, United States, Sept 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – 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.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 2210 hrs