Washington: In a move which could fuel tension and bring chaos in the Middle-East region, US President Donald Trump has scrapped the Iran nuclear deal signed by his predecessor Barack Obama and five other leaders from China, Germany, the UK, France and Russia in 2015.
In his televised address to the nation on Tuesday, he termed the deal “decaying and rotten and was “an embarrassment” to him as “as a citizen.”
Taking the step despite European leaders’ advice, Trump said he is ready, willing and able to renegotiate a nuclear deal that would definitely kill Iran’s pursuit for nuclear weapons and end what he called its sponsorship of terror in the Middle-East.
The US President said even if Iran complied with the agreement it would still leave Tehran on the verge of nuclear weapons, so poorly was the deal negotiated.
“If I allow this deal to stay, it will set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle-East. If the deal cannot not be fixed, the US could no longer be a party to it,” Trump said in a statement he read out on television inside the White House, maintaining “we cannot prevent an Iran nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotting structure of this agreement.”
Asserting that he was reinstating and instituting the “highest level of sanction,” Trump also warned that any nation that helps Iran would also be subjected to sanctions.
In response, Iran said it was preparing to restart uranium enrichment, key for making both nuclear energy and weapons.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said: “The US has announced that it doesn’t respect its commitments.
“I have ordered the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran to be ready for action if needed, so that if necessary we can resume our enrichment on an industrial level without any limitations,” Rouhani said, adding he would “wait a few weeks” to speak to allies and the other signatories to the nuclear deal first.
