Michael Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Washington can continue for a long time to blockade Iran’s ports and that the Donald Trump administration is intensifying economic pressure on the Islamic Republic.

In response to the prospect that the stalemate between Tehran and Washington could continue into the next year, without reaching a nuclear deal or a return of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war conditions, he said: “I don’t want to discuss hypothetical scenarios. We hope that they will come to the negotiating table in a serious and meaningful way before then.”

He added: “The president and the U.S. Navy can continue this blockade into the foreseeable future.”

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations emphasized that Washington will not achieve its strategic objectives in the war until high-enriched Iranian nuclear materials are eliminated and until it reaches a “meaningful” agreement on uranium enrichment inside Iran.

In another part of the interview, he said that the United States is reducing the budgets of the United Nations bodies for implementing reforms and called for an end to long-term peacekeeping mandates in Lebanon, Somalia and the Western Sahara. http