MODERATOR:  Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to the press conference in the Belvedere on the occasion of the visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Vienna.  Following the statement of the two ministers, there will be an opportunity to ask two questions.  I would now like to ask Foreign Minister Schallenberg to give his remarks.

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SECRETARY POMPEO: [...] Critically too, we talked with our Austrian counterparts this morning on our support for IAEA Director General Grossi’s critical mission to ensure that all countries comply with their international nuclear safeguard requirements.  That mission is all the more important given the Islamic Republic of Iran’s failure to address the IAEA’s questions about its nuclear activities.  The international community must speak with a single voice.  Iran must provide full, transparent, and immediate cooperation with the IAEA.

So too, we ask nations to urge the UN Security Council to renew the arms embargo on Tehran.  We can’t allow the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell weapons.  I mean, that’s just nuts.  We talked about Communist China too.  It’s been a subject of our talks.  It’s been visibly absent from these nuclear arms discussions that we have been having, the strategic conversations here in Vienna that the Austrian people have been so wonderful in supporting.

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QUESTION:  Foreign Minister Schallenberg, Belarus – as EU foreign ministers are meeting today to discuss sanctions over disputed Belarus election, do you support new sanctions on Belarus?  Have you coordinated with the United States on possible new sanctions?

And Mr. Secretary, if I may on Iran, as the U.S. is pushing to extend arms embargo on Iran, given the likely veto from Russia and China and given European diplomats are searching to find the middle course to save the Iran nuclear deal, is the United States willing to compromise its demands for an indefinite extension of the Iran arms embargo, or will they immediately seek the snapback sanctions on Iran?  Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER SCHALLENBERG:  May I start with Belarus?  We are not discussing this afternoon sanctions, we are discussing the situation in Belarus.  I believe that what is needed now is a clear, common line for the European Union.  And as I said at the beginning, we are extremely worried about the situation we’re seeing there.  Europe and the European Union, and especially Austria has been among them reaching out to them.  We don’t want to push them back into the Russian hemisphere, and they have been helpful, for instance, on issues such as Ukraine in the past.  So we would like to see a Belarus which moves our way in far – as far as standards and values are concerned.

We all agree that this vote and this election was anything but fair and free, but what we want now – and that’s what my expectation is of this afternoon – the video conferences that we will have among the EU foreign ministers – is a clear call on Minsk to end immediately all the violence, the arbitrary detentions.  Release the remaining prisoners.  They did start today, but more has to follow.  But the most important demand would be to start a meaningful national dialogue.  And in case these demands are not followed or Minsk even takes another approach, then I believe the European Union should not exclude sanctions.  That should be the signal from my perspective.  Not adopt them or implement them, but not excluding them either.

I’m sorry to say this room is made for balls and waltzing.  (Laughter.)  It’s not made for press conferences, according to the echo.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  No worries.  We actually spent a fair amount of time talking about Belarus today.  I traveled there not too long ago, again, trying to work with the Belarusian people with very good outcomes, to put them in a better place.  Our views are the same about what has transpired, and I think the world collectively will respond to this in a way that I hope leads to better outcomes for the Belarusian people.

Look, we’ve been at this issue on this UN arms embargo for coming on two years, since December of 2018 – was the first time I spoke publicly about it.  It makes no sense to permit the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to purchase and sell weapons systems.  It doesn’t make sense for the European people either, in our view, and we think anybody that’s within missile range will be at greater risk because of the air defense systems, for example, that the Iranians will be able to purchase if this arms embargo expires on October 18th.

And so we’re urging the whole world to join us, to just make the simple statement this isn’t about the JCPOA; this is about whether the world is going to permit Iran to buy and sell weapons systems.  Again, it’s that clear, it’s that simple.  We think the time is not right.  We don’t think Iran has given any indication that it is in a place remotely where the world sell Iran and China – to sell them high-end weapons systems.  So we’re going to do everything that we can within our diplomatic toolset to ensure that that arms embargo doesn’t expire.  We hope that – the voting will be within the next handful of hours; we hope it will be successful.  When we see the results of that, we’ll make the decision about how to move forward.  We have been unambiguous, however, about the fact that we have no intention of allowing this arms embargo to expire.  None whatsoever.

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