Iran threatens to walk away from nuclear deal if US pulls out

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iran has threatened to walk away from a nuclear deal with world powers if the United States continues to demand a renegotiation of the pact.

In a video statement published on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected his country’s interests in revising the current deal.

“Let me make it absolutely clear once and for all: We will neither outsource our security nor will we renegotiate or add on to a deal we have already implemented in good faith,” he said.

Zarif claimed Washington had “consistently violated the agreement, especially by bullying others from doing business with Iran.”

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran, the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, and France in 2015.

Iran signed the deal promising to halt its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

US President Donald Trump has often criticized the 2015 deal and has threatened to scrap the current agreement unless new, more stringent restrictions were imposed on Iran by May 12.

Iran’s foreign policy advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, also issued a warning to Washington that Tehran would quit the deal if Trump pulled the US out of the agreement.

“If the United States withdraws from the nuclear deal, then we will not stay in it,” he was quoted as saying by state television. “Iran accepts the nuclear agreement as it has been prepared and will not accept adding or removing anything.”

Britain, France, and Germany have all suggested other options to strengthen the deal, but Velayati said any amendment to the pact would lead to Iran’s withdrawal.

“Even if countries allied with the United States, especially the Europeans, seek to revise the nuclear agreement…one of our options will be withdrawing from the accord,” he said.