Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (R) and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attend a meeting with Muslim leaders and scholars in Hyderabad, India, February 15, 2018. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui Iran is now claiming that the Trump administration is violating the nuclear deal due to their recent actions in cracking down on the Iranian regime.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was particularly irked at White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster for suggesting that countries should refuse to do business and trade with Iran since the Iranian regime funds terror groups like Hezbollah. The Iranian regime has also taken umbrage to the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail Iran’s ballistic missile program.
“I believe President Trump has tried to walk away from that deal from day one of his presidency and he has done everything in bad faith to prevent Iran from enjoying the benefits of this deal already,” Zarif said. “So we believe the U.S. is already in violation.”
Zarif also said that Iran “will respond seriously” to such violations.
A White House foreign policy adviser told the Free Beacon that Zarif’s statements should cause Congress to look into side deals that were forged under the Obama administration.
“Iran seems to think new economic pressure violates implicit understandings and side deals,” the adviser said. “Congress should demand answers from former Obama officials to see what they actually promised.”
The side deals that the adviser is referring to involved secret deals that were made between the Obama administration and Iran that provided exemptions to the Iranian regime when they violated the deal, thus allowing the Obama administration to claim that Iran was abiding by the deal. In December 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) exposed such agreements in which the Obama administration allowed Iran to produce nuclear energy above the 300 mg limit established in the deal.
President Trump recently abrogated the Iran deal and has said that the deal needs to be strengthened or terminated altogether. His administration also recently levied sanctions on Iranian individuals and businesses.
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