President Donald Trump has suggested that he would prefer to withdraw from or renegotiate the nuclear deal with Iran. Officials from the other world powers that negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, however, have warned the United States against withdrawing from the deal. The following are excerpted remarks.
On September 24, President Donald Trump announced new travel restrictions on certain foreigners from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. The move replaced key parts of a controversial travel ban signed earlier in 2017.
Iranian officials reacted angrily to President Donald Trump’s address to the U.N. General Assembly. On September 19, he referred to the Islamic Republic as a “murderous regime” and a “corrupt dictatorship” posing as a democracy. The following are reactions from Iran.
Iranian leaders have warned the Trump administration against withdrawing from the nuclear deal and have called on Washington to fully adhere to its commitments. President Hassan Rouhani has accused the United States of being unreliable. Iran “will not remain quiet against the United States’ continuing to wriggle out of its commitments,” he told Parliament in August.
On September 18, President Hassan Rouhani discussed the nuclear deal, regional conflicts, human rights, and other issues at an event with American foreign policy analysts and journalists. He was in New York City to attend the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. The following are excerpts as translated by an Iranian interpreter, arranged by topic.
On September 14, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned 11 entities and individuals for supporting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps or networks responsible for cyber-attacks against the United States.
The following are excerpts from a Congressional Research Service report on options that the Trump Administration may use to end or alter U.S. implementation of the Iran nuclear deal.
Kenneth Katzman Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs
A key section of the nuclear deal bans Iran from undertaking certain nuclear weapons development activities and controlling certain equipment that could be used in such activities. But the most recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog “made at best a general statement” about its monitoring and verification of that section, according to two nuclear experts, David Albright and Ollie Heinonen. Albright, a physicist and former U.N. weapons inspector, is president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
The following is a September 6 press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York.
On September 5, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley criticized the nuclear deal and argued that U.N. inspectors cannot know if Iran is cheating. Iranian leaders have vowed to not allow inspections of military sites. The regime has "hundreds of undeclared sites that have suspicious activity that [inspectors] haven't looked at,” she said at the American Enterprise Institute.
