Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that if Iran wants the U.S. to consider de-escalating sanctions against the country it would have to make “enormous change.”
“We’re very hopeful that we can find a way to move forward, but it’s going to require enormous change on the part of the Iranian regime,” Pompeo told reporters on Sunday. “They’ve got to — well, they’ve got to behave like a normal country. That’s the ask. It’s pretty simple.”
Pompeo also said that Iran is one of the world’s largest state sponsors of terror, saying the U.S. will continue to enforce sanctions until Tehran ends its “malign activity,” Politico reported.
“Perhaps that’ll be the path the Iranians choose to move down,” Pompeo said. “But there’s no evidence to date of their desire to change and behave in a more normal way.”
On Monday the sanctions against Iran’s automotive industry, as well as gold and other metals, are scheduled to start.
President Trump in May abandoned former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which lowered sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.
Meanwhile, another batch of sanctions is to be imposed in November.
Pompeo said the U.S. is “going to enforce the sanctions.”
The Secretary of State has been ramping up a pressure campaign against Iran in recent weeks, calling the Iranian government corrupt and exploitative while offering words of support for those protesting it on the ground.
“The Iranian people are not happy — not with the Americans, but with their own leadership,” Pompeo said. “They’re unhappy with the failure of their own leadership to deliver the economic promises that their leadership promised them.”
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