Trump abandons 'defective' Iran nuclear deal; ignores European pleas

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump withdrew the United States out of an international nuclear deal with Iran, raising the risk of conflict in the Middle East, upsetting European allies and casting uncertainty over global oil supplies, Reuters reported.

Trump said in a much-awaited televised address on Tuesday from the White House that he would reimpose U.S. economic sanctions on Iran to undermine. He called the 2015 deal “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”

The agreement, worked out by the United States, five other world powers and Iran, lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear program. The pact also provided for preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

But Trump complained that the accord, the signature foreign policy achievement of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, did not address Iran’s ballistic missile program, its nuclear activities beyond 2025 or its role in conflicts in Yemen and Syria.

Trump’s decision intensifies the strain on his regime's relations with European powers which have been advocating keeping the treaty intact, although some of them admit that it was a less than perfect accord. One by one, European leaders came to Washington and tried to meet his demands, while pleading with him to preserve the deal, but all to no avail.

By the middle of last week, however, it was becoming clear to diplomats that Trump would not be budge. Even Trump’s top aides had not been seeking aggressively to talk Trump out of withdrawing because his mind had been made up, a White House official said.