DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Iran’s president said Sunday if the U.S. withdraws from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that Washington would regret the decision.
Hassan Rouhani said in a televised address, “If the United States leaves the nuclear agreement, you will soon see that they will regret it like never before in history.
“We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord,” Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television, Reuters reported.
“Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organization … and to the economic sector to confront America’s plots against our country,” Rouhani told a rally in northeast Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will decide by May 12 whether Washington will remain an adherent to the nuclear agreement.
He 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.
Iran’s foreign minister said Thursday Iran will not renegotiate a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.
“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.
Meanwhile, a foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned last week 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.”
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
