Trump Is Endangering Nuclear Deal, Says Iranian Foreign Minister

As the United States and Iran mark two years since reaching their landmark deal on nuclear weapons, analysts say Iran has met its obligations stipulated by the agreement—while the U.S. has failed to do so.

The deal, forged in July 2015 by Iran and the Obama administration along with Germany and the four other members of the U.N. National Security Council, stipulated that sanctions on Iran would be lifted in exchange for its halting of nuclear development for the next decade and its compliance with continuous surveillance of its nuclear enrichment and storage sites, among other requirements.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was tasked with making sure Iran complied with the deal, and has reported that the country has done so. But with the introduction of a Senate bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran aimed at its ballistic missile program, the language of which the nonpartisan Arms Control Association calls “overly broad and imprecise,” critics say the U.S. has not met the deal’s terms, endangering the agreement.

In an interview on Sunday on “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that President Donald Trump has failed to hold up the United States’ end of the bargain by urging its allies to cut business ties with Iran, effectively enacting more sanctions.

“When…President Trump used his presence in the G20 meeting in Hamburg in order to dissuade leaders from other counties to engage in business with Iran, that is a violation of not the spirit but the letter of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], of the nuclear deal,” Zarif said.