Iran not ‘living up to spirit’ of N-deal
washington — Iran is “not living up to the spirit” of the nuclear deal struck with world powers, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, warning America would set out its position on that soon.
Trump’s administration has been publicly tightening the noose on Iran over the deal, which was negotiated by the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany to roll back Tehran’s nuclear program in return for the easing of sanctions.
“It was a terrible agreement,” said Trump, who has regularly blamed his predecessor Barack Obama for securing it. “That was a bad one, as bad as I’ve ever seen negotiated.”
“Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement, and they have to do that,” Trump said in a joint news conference in the White House with Italy’s visiting Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.
“We’re analyzing it very, very carefully and will have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future.”
Trump on Tuesday ordered a review of the deal led by his National Security Council. It will decide whether suspending sanctions “is vital to the national security interests of the United States.”
Although the State Department admits Iran has so far stuck to its side of the bargain, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday called the pact a failure and warned Iran risked becoming another North Korea: a hostile, nucleararmed state.
He said Iran is “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” and highlighted its military support of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, Houthi rebels in Yemen and mili-
We’re analysing it very, very carefully and will have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future’. Donald Trump
tias in Iraq and in Lebanon.
“Iran’s provocative actions threaten the United States, the region, and the world,” Tillerson said.
iran’s provocative actions threaten the united States, the region, and the world’. Rex Tillerson
Pentagon chief Jim Mattis reinforced that tone during a visit to Saudi Arabia, when he said Iran was the source of many problems in the Middle East.
On Thursday, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, followed up by calling Iran the “chief culprit” in conflicts in the Middle East and urged the UN Security Council to make handling the country a “priority.”
Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Gholamali Khoshroo, hit back by accusing the United States of waging a “misleading propaganda campaign” against his country.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter that “worn-out US accusations can’t mask its admission of Iran’s compliance” with the nuclear deal.
Iran has long insisted its nuclear programme has no military purpose. But world powers were not convinced and the accord provided for regular inspections of facilities.
Thus far, Trump has made no steps to tear up the deal, as he had threatened to do when campaigning to become president.—