Iran’s foreign minister said Thursday Iran will not renegotiate a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. The statement was made days before President Donald Trump’s deadline to decide if the U.S. will remain in the agreement.
“We will neither outsource our security nor will we renegotiate or add onto a deal we have already implemented in good faith,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on YouTube.
Trump has said he will pull out of the pact if amendments are not made, including a proposal to limit Iran’s ballistic missile program, which Iran has maintained is a defensive deterrent.
Meanwhile, a foreign policy advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Thursday Iran would withdraw from the deal if Trump follows through on his threat to pull out of the accord.
Ali Akbar Velayati said on Iran’s state television website, “If the United States withdraws from the nuclear deal, then we will not stay in it.”
Velayati warned against any attempts to renegotiate in exchange for sanctions relief, saying, “Iran accepts the nuclear agreement as it has been prepared and will not accept adding or removing anything.”
There was no immediate response to the comments from the Trump administration.
The three European countries that signed the agreement, Britain, France and Germany, have repeatedly tried to persuade Trump not to withdraw.
China and Russia also signed the deal. All of the signatory countries are members of the United Nations Security Council. | via Voice of America
