Trump to announce decision on Iran accord

Washington, May 8 (IANS) President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he will make public his decision on whether to withdraw from the nuclear accord signed by several big world powers with Iran in 2015.

"I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2.00 p.m," the President said via Twitter.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson have come to Washington in recent days to bring pressure to bear on Trump to keep the US in the accord.

The President has said on several occasions that he will withdraw from the pact if it is not revised, and he is demanding that Iran’s ballistic missile systems and its influence in the Middle East be limited as part of any new or revised deal.

The accord – signed among Iran and the 5+1 Group consisting of the US, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany – limits Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions on the regime, but it does not mention conventional weapons or the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hasan Rohani warned on the weekend that the US will quickly regret it if it abandons the nuclear accord, at the same time that he reiterated his opposition to negotiating a new pact.

Trump, on Monday, lambasted former Secretary of State John Kerry after The Boston Globe reported that the Democrat has been meeting with foreign officials to help devise a strategy that would keep the US in the pact.

"The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!" said Trump on Twitter, alluding to the central role Kerry played in negotiating the pact during the Barack Obama administration.