Iran is violating spirit of nuclear deal –Trump
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has angrily accused Iran of violating the spirit of the landmark 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 begin to kick in 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 said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan backed Mr Trump’s decision to re-examine the seven-nation accord.
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 simply enforcing a bad agreement was not sufficient.
Mr Trump’s announcement was essentially a compromise that allows him to condemn an accord that he has repeatedly denounced as the worst deal in American history. But he stopped well short of torpedoing the pact, which was negotiated over 18 months by the Obama administration, European allies and others.
Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to put the accord’s previous sanctions back into place, modify them or do nothing. Any decision to re-impose sanctions would kill America’s participation in the deal.
After his announcement Mr Trump said if Congress doesn’t come up with satisfactory changes to the deal in a “very short” period of time, then he’s prepared to “terminate” it. He said he was “very unhappy with Iran” and warned the country “has to behave much differently”.