Russia has accused the United States of “trampling” international law by opting out of a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday pulled the United States out of an international nuclear deal with Iran, raising the risk of conflict in the Middle East, upsetting European allies and casting uncertainty over global oil supplies.The 2015 agreement, worked out by the United States and five other world powers including Russia and Iran, lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear program.
“We are extremely concerned that the United States is once again acting contrary to the opinion of most states and exclusively in its own self-serving and opportunistic interests, grossly trampling the norms of international law,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
The ministry’s statement accused Washington of “intractability” and called its criticism of the nuclear deal a “front to settle political accounts” with Tehran, though it did not criticize Trump by name.
In a televised address from the White House, Trump said that he would reimpose U.S. economic sanctions on Iran to undermine "a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made."
Trump's decision puts the Korean peninsula peace process in doubt, Yevgeny Serebrennikov, first deputy head of the defence and security committee in the Russian Upper House of Parliament, told the RIA news agency.
Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s envoy to the European Union, was quoted separately by RIA as saying that Russia will continue its efforts to keep the Iran nuclear deal functioning.
Reuters contributed reporting to this article.
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