US To Stay In Iran Nuclear Deal For Now, Insists On Revisiting Deal For Real Changes

A top US national security official maintained the United States will remain in the Iran nuclear deal for now but insisted on the need for 'real changes' days after President Trump dealt a blow to the 2015 agreement reached with Tehran with the help of the European allies

WASHINGTON, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Oct, 2017 ) :A top US national security official maintained the United States will remain in the Iran nuclear deal for now but insisted on the need for 'real changes' days after President Trump dealt a blow to the 2015 agreement reached with Tehran with the help of the European allies.

In a speech on Friday, President Trump chose not to certify if Tehran was in compliance of the deal and throwing the ball in Congress' court which now needs to decide in 60 days whether to reimpose sanctions that crippled Iran for several years and lifted under the pact.

President Trump has even threatened to ultimately terminate the deal if it was not revisited, drawing warnings from the European allies and the Chief of the UN atomic watchdog who believed the 2015 pact put Iran under the 'most robust nuclear verification regime.' Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Trump's national security adviser H.R.

McMaster said that the President was not walking away from the deal yet, but said that his threat to cancel the deal 'set out a marker' for the US and its allies to fix what he called ' a weak deal', the Washington Post reported.

'The president has made clear that he will not permit this deal to provide cover for what we know is a horrible regime to develop a nuclear weapon,' McMaster told the news channel. 'One of the real problems with this deal is we can't really say with confidence that they're complying,' McMaster said and accused Iran of violating the spirit of the deal and having 'crossed the line several times in terms of the restrictions.

President Trump during a speech on Friday took an aggressive approach toward the pact and criticized the previous administration of President Barack Obama which had concluded the deal in 2015. 'The previous Administration's myopic focus on Iran's nuclear program to the exclusion of the regime's many other malign activities allowed Iran's influence in the region to reach a high-water mark,' according to the script of the new strategy by President Trump posted on the White House website.

It said that the Trump administration will not repeat these 'mistakes' and will ''address the totality of these threats from and malign activities by the Government of Iran and will seek to bring about a change in the Iranian's regime's behavior'.

To a question, NSA McMaster said that Iran have to revisit the deal which, he said, is giving Iran the opportunity to 'develop a nuclear capability'. While he insisted that the President was not walking away from the deal yet, he added that President Trump wants to see 'some real change'.

If Congress decides to reimpose sanctions, it would likely fall apart. In case it doesn't take any action, the deal will remain intact.