(AFP) TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on Thursday criticized “worn-out” US accusations that it was seeking a nuclear weapon to threaten the region and the world.
“Worn-out US accusations can’t mask its admission of Iran’s compliance” with a 2015 nuclear deal, Zarif wrote on Twitter.
Iran says its nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes, but signed a deal with world powers to restrict its fuel enrichment for 10 years in exchange for sanctions relief.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that Tehran has so far met its obligations, but that the deal could only delay Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.
The deal “fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran,” he said, and was a product of “the same failed approach of the past that brought us to the current imminent threat we face from North Korea.”
Zarif also said in Thursday’s Twitter post that Iran’s compliance had forced the administration of US President Donald Trump “to change course and fulfill its own commitments.”
Trump described the accord as the “worst deal ever negotiated” during his campaign and threatened to tear it up, but analysts say that is increasingly unlikely.
Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer said a review would be conducted by US government agencies over the next 90 days on whether to stick by the deal.