Johnson says Trump could win peace prize if he fixes Iran deal

diplomacy: Foreign secretary joins bid to persuade US not to withdraw from nuclear pact

Donald Trump would be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize if he can fix the Iran nuclear deal, says Boris Johnson.

The foreign secretary is on a diplomatic dash to the US in the hope of persuading the president not to pull out of the long-fought-for agreement.

Mr Trump has branded the accord the “worst” deal ever backed by the US and will decide on May 12 whether to reimpose sanctions and effectively torpedo the international alliance behind the deal.

Mr Johnson is meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo but is not scheduled to hold talks with Mr Trump.

Instead, he appeared on the president’s favourite TV programme in an effort to save the deal. The foreign secretary told the Fox & Friends morning news show the agreement should not be ditched.

He said: “If you do that you have to answer the question: what next? What if the Iranians do rush for a nuclear weapon? Are we seriously saying that we are going to bomb those facilities at Fordo and Natanz?

“Is that really a realistic possibility? Or do we work round what we have got and push back on Iran together?”

In a separate interview during the visit, Mr Johnson raised the prospect of Mr Trump winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He told Sky News: “If he can fix North Korea and if he can fix the Iran nuclear deal then I don’t see why he is any less of a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than Barack Obama, who got it before he even did anything.”

The decision to award Mr Obama the prize in 2009 – just a short time after he entered the White House – proved controversial.

British, French and German diplomats have been working for weeks behind the scenes with US counterparts in an effort to preserve the Iran deal. The UK’S ambassador to the United States, Sir Kim Darroch, said the Iran agreement was “a good deal” but efforts were ongoing to “find some language, produce some action that meets the president’s concerns”.

Mr Trump has threatened to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal signed by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain with Iran. Under its terms, Iran is committed to a peaceful nuclear energy programme.

Picture: AP. UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, left, shakes hands with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department in Washington.

Mr Trump has been a vocal critic of the JCPOA and, in January, issued an ultimatum to “either fix the deal’s disastrous flaws or the United States will withdraw”.