Trump accuses Iran of violating the ‘spirit’ of 2015 nuclear deal
US moves to impose sanctions to prevent Iran funding terrorism
President Donald Trump has angrily accused Iran of violating the spirit of the country’s 2015 nuclear deal but stopped short of ripping up the agreement.
In a speech at the White House, the US president announced a new strategy, saying the administration would seek to counter the regime’s destabilising activities and would impose additional sanctions to block its financing of terrorism.
But Mr Trump said he was not yet ready to implement a campaign pledge to pull the US out of the deal or re-impose nuclear sanctions.
Instead, he moved the issue to Congress and the other parties to the seven-nation accord, telling legislators to toughen the law that governs US participation and to fix a series of deficiencies in the agreement.
Those include the expiration of several key restrictions under “sunset provisions” that will apply in 2025, he said.
Mr Trump warned that without the fixes, he was minded to pull the US out of the deal and snap previously lifted sanctions back into place.
Without improvements, he said, “the agreement will be terminated”.
“It is under continuous review and our participation can be cancelled by me as president at any time,” he added.
House Speaker Paul Ryan backed Mr Trump’s decision to re-examine the seven-nation accord which he claimed was “fatally flawed”.
The Wisconsin Republican said weaknesses in the nuclear agreement would allow Iran “to pursue nuclear weapons under the guise of international legitimacy” once specific restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme expire after predetermined periods of time.
He warned that simply enforcing a bad agreement was not sufficient.
Britain, France and Germany “stand committed” to the Iran nuclear deal and are “concerned by the possible implications” of Donald Trump’s refusal to back it, Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron said in a joint statement.
Mrs May, the German chancellor and the French president said preserving the pact was “in our shared national security interest” and called for Washington to “consider the implications” of taking action that could undermine it.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has described the Iran nuclear deal as a robust agreement that is working and cannot be terminated by any leader, including Mr Trump.
Mogherini said yesterday that the accord was “a robust deal that provides guarantees and a strong monitoring mechanism so that Iran’s nuclear programme is, and will remain, exclusively for civilian purposes only”.
Ms Mogherini, who worked on behalf of major world powers to secure the deal, told reporters that there had “been no violations of any of the commitments”.
She underlined that Mr Trump could not kill the deal, saying: “The president of the United States has many powers. Not this one.”
She stressed that the EU remained committed to the Iran nuclear pact.