TEHRAN – U.S. national security adviser John Bolton has claimed that the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Iran is working.

“I am here to tell you today President Trump's pressure campaign against Iran is working,” Bolton said at the Christians United for Israel conference in Washington on Monday.

Bolton who is notoriously famous for his anti-Iran remarks again accused Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons. 

“We will continue to increase the pressure on the Iranian regime until it abandons its nuclear weapons program and ends its violent activities across the Middle East, including conducting and supporting terrorism around the world,” he said, according to Reuters.

However, Bolton and others who make similar claims don’t say that if Iran is actually seeking to build nuclear arms why has it signed the NPT and agreed to the most robust inspection regime by the UN nuclear watchdog. 

Bolton’s remarks comes two days after Tehran announced that it would start to enrich uranium to a higher purity than the 3.67% in response to U.S. sanctions and Europe’s inaction.

Iran’s chief demand is that Tehran be permitted to export crude oil at the same levels before the U.S. reimposed sanctions.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal, officially called the JCPOA, Iran had agreed to put limits on parts of its nuclear activities in exchange for the termination of all economic and financial sanctions.

The step taken by Iran on Sunday was the second of its kind. In the first step announced on May 8, Iran announced that it will not sell its stockpile of enriched uranium enriched to 3.67 percent.

It came exactly a year after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA. The exit followed by introducing the harshest ever sanctions on Tehran in a clear violation of the UN Security Council resolution 2231 and pressuring other countries to violate the same resolution by cutting economic ties with Iran.

MH/PA