Washington, Oct 16 (EFE).- US President Donald trump said Monday that pulling his government out of the nuclear pact with Iran is a very real possibility, perhaps more probable than remaining in the multilateral agreement reached in 2015.
“I feel strongly about what I did. I’m tired of being taken advantage of as a nation,” Trump told the press during a Cabinet meeting.
“We’ll see what phase two is. Phase two might be positive. It might be very negative. Might be a total termination.
That’s a very real possibility. But it also could turn out to be very positive. We’ll see what happens,” the president said.
But Trump also said he was pleased that lately “the tone of the Iranian leaders was very modified. And I was happy to see that. But I don’t know if that means anything.”
He called the Iranians “great negotiators” because “they negotiated a phenomenal deal for themselves, but a horrible deal for the United States.”
Trump announced Friday that for now he will maintain US participation in the nuclear agreement with Iran, but will back out if it isn’t modified unilaterally by the US Congress, or multilaterally in negotiations involving all the signatory nations.
Specifically, the president wishes to correct the “weak inspections” allowed in the accord, deal with Tehran’s “ballistic rocket program” and eliminate the “expiry dates” fixed on Iran’s nuclear program, which in some cases expire after as much as 10 to 25 years.
The president urged the US Congress to pass an amendment to the law that marks “red lines”, which, if they are crossed, would immediately bring back the sanctions that were lifted on Iran’s nuclear program by the agreement signed with France, the UK, Germany, China, Russia and Iran.
The Trump government will also try to reach a parallel accord with the signatory countries that deals with the expiry dates, the ballistic missile program and the mechanisms for inspecting Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iranian authorities have said the nuclear agreement reached more than 10 years ago cannot be renegotiated and that the pact will be respected as long there is reciprocity from the signatory nations. They also asked for European efforts to impede the latest US strategy.