MS ORTAGUS: Thank you so much and good afternoon, everybody. I know we’re having this call right after we did the press conference with the Secretary and we have another briefing later today, so apologies that we’re piling all of you up today. We’re going to try to allow for as much time as possible for Q&A (inaudible) many of you have it. But just want to reiterate, of course, that this is an on-the-record briefing with Special Representative for Venezuela and now also for Iran Elliott Abrams. While this is an on-the-record briefing, the contents of this briefing are embargoed until the end of the call, please.

This is actually Elliott’s first press briefing since he assumed both roles. He will of course begin with an introductory statement and then we’ll turn over to your questions. Just a reminder, you can press 1 and then 0 at any point in time on (inaudible) to enter the question queue.

So with that, I’ll go ahead and turn it over to Special Representative Abrams.

MR ABRAMS: Thanks, Morgan. I want to begin with a comment on Venezuela and the fraudulent election for the National Assembly now scheduled for December 6th, and then turn to Iran.

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Now, we’re aware of reports of additional tankers heading to Venezuela from Iran, and that’s another reminder of how Maduro has destroyed Venezuela’s economy and infrastructure through incompetence and mismanagement and corruption and created the need to import gasoline into this oil-rich country. The installed crude oil refinery capacity in Venezuela is 1,300,000 barrels a day. But that corruption and neglect have reduced actual gasoline refined to less than 5 percent of that. So the regime turned to another international pariah, Iran, shipping it gold to buy gasoline.

As you know, virtually all UN sanctions on Iran will come back into place this weekend at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday the 19th. The arms embargo will now be re-imposed indefinitely and other restrictions will return, including the ban on Iran engaging in enrichment and reprocessing-related activities, the prohibition on ballistic missile testing and development, and sanctions on the transfer of nuclear and missile-related technologies to Iran.

The Secretary said just a couple of hours ago that we expect all UN member states to implement the UN sanctions fully and respect the process and obligations to uphold these sanctions. We’ll have a lot more to say on this, in detail, on Monday.

This is a good moment to reflect on the almost religious commitment of some countries to that nuclear deal. But five years of JCPOA meetings have not moderated Iran’s tactics or choices at all. It’s time for peace-loving nations to recognize this reality and join us in imposing sanctions on Iran. It is astonishing that anyone would think or have thought it sensible to allow the arms embargo on Iran to expire next month, given that regime’s role in destabilizing Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon and its continuing support for terrorism.

I want to close with the story of Navid Afkari, the young Iranian wrestling champion. In the summer of 2018, Navid joined a peaceful protest along with his two brothers. The regime arrested all three of them and tortured them into confessing for a murder that took place when they were in a completely different part of town. The regime wanted to make an example of them and, as you know, executed Navid last weekend.

This is a terrible reminder of the brutal and despotic regime with which we are dealing. I would remind you that yesterday Siamak Namazi celebrated his 49th birthday in the notorious Evin Prison. That marked 1,800 days – 1,800 days since the Iranian regime first took him hostage. Siamak, his father Baquer, and Morad Tahbaz remain innocent victims of the Iranian regime and we work every single day to gain their release.

Thanks, and I’m happy to take questions on either Venezuela or Iran.

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QUESTION: Thanks, Elliott. I have a – my questions are about Iran. You guys can say all you want that you expect UN member-states to go ahead and join you in enforcing the sanctions that you say are going to be reimposed, but the reality of the situation is that no one – no other country – exception for maybe Israel and maybe the Gulf, some of the Gulf countries – think that you have the legal standing to do this and so they’re not going to enforce them. So why is it wrong for people to think that you guys are just barreling ahead with something that is going to create major problems for the UN in terms of its credibility and the credibility of the Security Council, as well as U.S. credibility? Thanks.

MR ABRAMS: Thanks, Matt. Secretary Pompeo did address similar questions, and I’ll answer your question as best I can, but I would urge you to take a look also at what he said at about noon today in the press conference with Foreign Secretary Raab. I do remember a couple of years ago the many, many expert opinions suggesting that the unilateral imposition of sanctions by the United States would have no effect on Iran, and as the Secretary said, boy, all you have to do is look at the Iranian economy to see that that is not true. And the reason that it was not true is that whatever foreign ministries said, individuals, businesspersons, banks, companies around the world paid attention to the sanctions and did not wish to violate them. I think you will see that happen again with respect to the reimposition of UN sanctions. I think that all of those individual actors around the world will take a look at the text of those sanctions and what the United States is saying and will realize that for them, the UN sanctions must be regarded as back into effect. So I do think that this will have a very significant impact.

I don’t – and I think it’s – the United States, first of all, is not isolated with respect to the arms embargo. I think and we know from our conversations there are many countries around the world that feel exactly as we do, including in Europe, about the expiration of the arms embargo. There was a letter from the Gulf Cooperation Council, all the members, to the UN Security Council, saying please do not let the UN arms embargo end. And as the Secretary said, what we’re dealing with here is an effort on the part of the United States to overcome the diplomatic malpractice five years ago that suggested it would be a good idea to allow Iran to import and export any – any arms it wanted to – main battle tanks, combat jets – in only five years. That’s what we’re up against and that’s why we’re taking this action.

MS ORTAGUS: Thank you so much. Okay, I’m going to try not to mispronounce the name here. Haik, H-a-i-k, Garats, G-a-r-a-t-s, from Argus Media.

QUESTION: Hi, this is Haik Gugarats with Argus Media. Thank you. I have two questions for you, sir, one on Venezuela and one on Iran.

On Venezuela, what is your current thinking on the diesel-for-crude swaps? Are your efforts to persuade companies not to participate in those working, and if not, do you think at some point a government directive to end it via sanctions will be necessary?

And on Iran snapback, I’m trying to understand the practical effect given that you just said unilateral U.S. sanctions pretty much already ended most dealings between Iran and all the other countries. So what is it exactly that your snapback will do in ending any new transactions? Is it humanitarian deals, or what exactly will be the practical effect? Thank you.

MR ABRAMS: Thanks. On the latter question, not humanitarian deals, there are carveouts in all – all U.S. sanctions for humanitarian goods such as food and medicine. But I’ll give you an example of where we expect a practical effect: the arms embargo. And as you know, it was the position of the United States that the arms embargo should be extended, and had it been extended, we would not have had to snap back to restore the full panoply of UN sanctions. So one practical effect, we believe, will be to say to arms manufacturers and traders around the world that if you engage in business with Iran, the very full force of these new or, rather, restored sanctions will be felt immediately. They will be placed on you. So I think you will see that happen.

With respect to diesel and the impact of U.S. sanctions, I would just note first: You may have seen the decision by Tipco, the asphalt company, which has been a significant consumer of Venezuelan oil and deals with the regime, and PDVSA has announced that it is getting out of that business. We’re looking very carefully at the diesel question and we note, for example, that the Maduro regime is consistently shipping diesel and other oil products to Cuba. I have no announcements to make today, but I think it’s pretty well known that we’re reviewing the whole diesel question.

MS ORTAGUS: Thank you. Carol Morello, Washington Post.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) Elliott, you just said that arms dealers around the world will realize that the restored sanctions will be felt immediately. Are you making concrete plans now for secondary sanctions after the embargo officially expires next month? And do you have any thoughts on what the impact – having a confrontation with U.S. allies, Russia, China, Iran, and the Security Council itself might – just two weeks before the election – might have on the vote itself?

MR ABRAMS: First, in our view, the UN sanctions snap back on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. So the October – I think it’s October 18th, the date for the end of the UN arms embargo – becomes a less significant date. As to whether we are making concrete plans, we are in many ways, and we will have some announcements over the weekend and more announcements on Monday and then subsequent days next week as to exactly how we are planning to enforce these returned UN sanctions. So you’ll see that. We actually have some announcements this week, but more on Saturday and then more on Monday and next week. I don’t think that this action on the part of the United States to enforce Resolution 2231 will have a negative impact on the UN Security Council unless other members of the Council continue to take the view that the UN sanctions have not returned and can be ignored. And whether those countries will in fact ignore the UN sanctions remains to be seen. We followed the procedures exactly set forth in Resolution 2231 word for word.

MS ORTAGUS: Okay, thank you. We now have Meghan Gordon from Platts.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you. Yes, on the Iranian fuel cargos heading to Venezuela, do you plan to target those with additional civil forfeiture cases like we saw earlier this summer or any other additional measures, or does the fact that they’re using Iranian tankers limit any options for stopping them?

MR ABRAMS: Well, our first goal was to make sure that no one other than Iran would engage in this trade. And it is interesting, actually. A lot of people have gasoline for sale. Certainly, China and Russia have gasoline for sale, but U.S. sanctions have led them to the view that they should not be engaged in that trade, and the Greek shippers have gotten out of that trade.

So we’re left only with Iranian tankers, Iranian-owned, flagged crude vessels that are engaged in that trade in a limited way. There are three on the way; that’ll provide a few weeks of gasoline. If you wanted to prevent the return of the kind of shortages that are now so common in Venezuela, you’d have had to leave Iran yesterday with another three tankers. You would need a shuttle service, which we have not seen.

So we’re watching what Iran is doing and making sure, in the first instance, that other shippers, insurers, ship owners, ship captains realize they must stay away from that trade.

MS ORTAGUS: Thank you. Joel Gerhke, Washington Examiner.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for doing this. I just wanted to follow up on the Iran question. I wonder: What practical actions do you believe that European countries could take to deter or interdict to Russian and Chinese arms sales to Iran? Would it be additional Iran-related sanctions on the Russian defense industry or new sanctions on Chinese companies? Would these actions find their legal basis solely in the UN arms embargo or could they be taken under the EU arms embargo authority or some other initiative?

And then kind of related to that, setting aside the particular legal dispute with the UN Security Council, I wonder: Are there any negotiations perhaps from British officials, any proposals for how the – how U.S. and European countries might cooperate to mitigate the perceived threats that all parties perceive from these arms deals?

MR ABRAMS: Yeah. Well, the European countries told us – the EU-3 and others as well – that they don’t want the arms embargo to end, but they were unable to take any action that kept the UN arms embargo in place. There’s a separate EU arms embargo.

What the European countries could do would be, number one, to enforce the UN sanctions that returned this weekend. Secondly, they could maintain a UN – sorry, an EU arms embargo on Iran and they could do that indefinitely. Thirdly, they could cooperate closely with us as – and when they see any effort by Russia, China, or anybody else to sell arms to Iran. We – again, we will be enforcing those UN sanctions.

In as much as the EU-3 and other Europeans have said to us, they really wish the UN arms embargo remained in place. They should take action to make sure, first, that no EU country engages in an arms sale to Iran, and second, they should be helping us to enforce the UN sanctions. And I do think that if the EU joined us in maintaining those sanctions, obviously it would have an impact on companies that were contemplating a sale.

MS ORTAGUS: Okay, great, thank you. Let’s see. Next up in the queue, Muath Alamri.

(No response.)

MS ORTAGUS: Muath Alamri.

OPERATOR: Go ahead. Your line is open.

(No response.)

MS ORTAGUS: Okay. I’ll give you one more chance. Muath.

(No response.)

MS ORTAGUS: Okay.

QUESTION: Hello?

MS ORTAGUS: Hi. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah, thank you. I would like to ask you about the intelligence report that Politico has published about the story about the – Iran weighing to attempt to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to the – to South Africa as a retaliation for the Soleimani killing. If you could elaborate what is the impact could happen and what those targets that Iran is looking to attack.

MR ABRAMS: I would say first that – I would say first that no one should be surprised by reports in the press that Iran is contemplating or planning acts of terrorism. This regime has decades of blood on its hands for terrorist attacks not only near Iran, but all over the world, then we remember the plan to attack the Saudi ambassador here in Washington.

Other than that, I would only say that the State Department and the U.S. Government more generally are always very attentive to the need to protect American officials around the world, but I don’t want to comment beyond that on this particular set of press reports.

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QUESTION: Thanks, Morgan. Hey, Elliott. Thanks for doing this. Logistically, as I understand it, the resolution requires the U.S. to veto a resolution that would extend the sanctions, the snapback sanctions. So just making sure that’s right. Is the U.S. planning to introduce its own resolution that it would then veto, or do you think that’s not even necessary ahead of Saturday night?

And a larger question: If those other countries don’t enforce these sanctions, do you fear that dilutes other Security Council sanctions, including, of course, the ones you’ve been talking about and working on when it comes to Venezuela? Thanks.

MR ABRAMS: I think you’re misreading 2231. I think 2231 is pretty clear that any JCPOA participant state can send that notification to the Security Council about Iran’s failure to meet its responsibilities. And sanctions return 30 days later unless a resolution has been adopted that continues the lifting of sanctions which 2231 brought, the sanctions in all the previous resolutions – 1737, 1929, and so forth.

So one way of getting there is somebody introduces a resolution to continue the sanctions, and they’re vetoed. That resolution is vetoed. The other way of getting there is that somebody introduces the letter to the council notifying it, and then the resolution to continue the lifting of sanctions does not pass. Well, it’s not passing. No one has introduced it. So the sanctions snap back.

I do think 2231 is pretty clear on that. A – the introduction of a resolution and its veto is not required. And if you go back to the speeches of various officials made five years ago, they were very clear in saying that one country – we, in this case – can bring back the sanctions without the action of any other. So I don’t think that’s – I don’t think your interpretation of it was right.

As to the impact on other Security Council sanctions, well, needless to say we hope not. What the United States is doing here is following the exact text of the UN Security Council Chapter VII resolution, Resolution 2231. And if other nations do not follow it, I think they should actually be asked your question, whether they do not think they’re weakening the structure of UN sanctions.

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QUESTION: Okay. Thanks so much for doing this, Elliott. Really quick, it’s almost 10 months since the U.S. killed Qasem Soleimani. Have you seen a deterrent effect as a result of that? Is Iran as threatening as it was before that action, or can you comment on that at all?

MR ABRAMS: Yeah. I would say that action did a very great deal to restore American deterrence and I would say a certain degree of caution on the part of Iran. Prior to that they or some of them were in doubt about the willingness of the United States to conduct an activity like that, and I think some other countries in the region were too. And I think it’s much clearer now that the United States is truly willing to act to defend itself and its allies and to act against terrorism in the region. And so I think as we’ve looked at Iranian reaction since then, I can’t mindread but there are indications of some degree of caution on the part of Iran about what reaction from the United States a particular Iranian action might evoke.

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