Trump signals that he’ll ‘quit Iran nuclear deal today’

DONALD Trump is today expected to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal. The US president tweeted last night that he would make an announcement on the future of the agreement this afternoon. Mr Trump has condemned the accord signed by his predecessor Barack Obama as ‘insane’.

The decision is likely despite lobbying from a string of European leaders in recent months, including French president Emmanuel Macron. UK prime minister Theresa May spoke to Mr Trump by phone at the weekend and her foreign secretary Boris Johnson was in Washington yesterday in a bid to prevent a US pullout.

Mr Johnson urged Mr Trump not to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ by walking away. He accepted the agreement was not perfect but warned that there was not a better alternative. He added that Mr Trump could be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize if he manages to ‘fix’ North Korea and Iran.

In the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in return for eased sanctions. Tehran claimed at the time it had been pursuing nuclear energy but not weapons.

Yesterday, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said his country could keep its nuclear deal even if the US pulls out – providing the EU guarantees Tehran would keep benefiting from the accord. Speaking during a meeting with officials in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the Iranian leader said a US pullout would be a ‘strategic mistake’.

He said: ‘What we want for the deal is that it’s preserved and guaranteed by the non-Americans’, a reference to other signatories. He said that in this case, the US pullout ‘will be OK’.

France and Germany later said they will also keep to the agreement, regardless of Mr Trump’s decision.