US decision upsets allies

LONDON: Both Washington’s European allies and Teheran have pledged to uphold the 2015 Iran nuclear deal despite President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out and reimpose sanctions.

European leaders decried Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal, which had lifted sanctions against Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. They called on Washington not to take steps that would prevent other countries from upholding it.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Teheran aimed to continue to comply with the deal’s terms, and would swiftly reach out to the other signatories — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — to keep it in place.

‘‘Together, we emphasise our continuing commitment to the JCPoA,’’ the leaders of Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement, referring to the deal by an acronym. ‘‘This agreement remains important for our shared security.’’

‘‘We urge the US to ensure that the structures of the JCPoA can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal,’’ said the statement, provided by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office after she spoke by phone to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Macron said he regretted Trump’s decision. Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said: ‘‘We will try to keep alive this important agreement, which ensures the Middle East and the world as a whole are safer.’’

Moscow said it too would focus its efforts on maintaining the accord. It called Trump’s decision ‘‘deeply disappointing’’.

‘‘There are no — and can be no — grounds for breaking’’ the deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

‘‘The United States is undermining international trust in the International Atomic Energy Agency.’’

EU leaders are concerned the US could use its influence over the world’s financial system to stop businesses in countries that have not reimposed sanctions on Iran from doing business there.

As if to hammer home that concern, Trump’s new ambassador to Germany, who presented his credentials in Berlin on Tuesday, tweeted that German businesses should halt activities in Iran immediately.

In Teheran, Rouhani, a relative moderate who faced down hardliners at home to reach the agreement with world powers as part of a policy to open up the country to the outside world, decried Trump’s decision, but said Iran would stick to the deal for now, provided it still works.

‘‘If we achieve the deal’s goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place,’’ he said in a televised speech.

Iranian officials said Trump’s decision would set the stage for a resurgence of political infighting within Iran’s complex power structure.

❛ We will try to keep alive this important agreement, which ensures the Middle East and the world as a whole are safer