A senior Iranian official said on Tuesday that Tehran may withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) if President Donald Trump scraps the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal.
Iran has been party to the NPT since 1970.
“This is one of three options that we are considering,” Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said about the possibility that Iran will withdraw from the NPT if Trump dismantles the nuclear Iran deal. According to Reuters, Shamkhani made the statement during a news conference broadcast on state television and also stated that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was ready for some “surprising actions” if the nuclear deal was scrapped.
Also on Tuesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani reportedly warned Trump that there would be “severe consequences” if he “betrays the deal.”
“If anyone betrays the deal, they should know that they would face severe consequences,” Rouhani said in Tabriz. He reportedly added, “Iran is prepared for all possible situations” and said, “I am telling those in the White House that if they do not live up to their commitments … the Iranian government will firmly react.”
Last week, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif threatened that the United States would face an “unpleasant” response if Washington decides to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal saying, “Definitely, the measure that the Islamic Republic would take and the reaction that the international community would show to the US move would be very unpleasant to the Americans.”
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Washington, DC, on Monday in a last-ditch attempt to keep America in the JCPOA.
During his joint press conference with the leader of the free world, Macron said it was time to work on a new Iran deal, saying, “I can say that we have had very frank discussions on that, just the two of us. We, therefore, wish from now on to work on a new deal with Iran.”
During the press conference, Trump warned Iran against restarting its nuclear program. “You’ll find out about that. It won’t be so easy for them to restart. They’re not going to be restarting anything. They restart it, they’re going to have big problems, bigger than they’ve ever had before,” Trump said.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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