LondonJust as U.S. President Donald Trump finished his speech outlining a hardline policy against Iran, Saudi Arabia was ready with a statement supporting his action.
The desert kingdom praised the president for his “vision” and commitment to working with allies in the region to confront Iran’s actions, according to a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
A staunch US ally, Saudi Arabia along with another US satellite state Israel have been bitter critics of the 2015 nuclear agreement reached between Iran and world powers. In its statement, the kingdom said Iran has used the financial gains from the accord “to destabilize the region, especially through developing a ballistic missileprogram.”
Iran and Saudi Arabia are on opposite ends of the Middle East’s conflicts from Syriato Yemen. The kingdom has sharpened its policy against Iran with the rise of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the king’s son and heir to the throne.
Another major critic of the deal Israel also showered praise for the U.S. President’s move.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded his “courageous decision,” saying it had created an “opportunity to fix this bad deal, to roll back Iran’s aggression and to confront its criminal support of terrorism”.
“I think that the speech was very significant. Iran is the new North Korea. We see where things are going,” Israel’s Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz also told the Israeli Channel 2 television network.
In contrast major powers trashed US presidents speech denouncing his decision to unilaterally decertify the deal
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini emphasized that no one country could ax the deal, which was agreed by the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the U.S.
To my knowledge there is not one single country in the world that can terminate a UN Security Council resolution that has been adopted, and adopted unanimously, and implemented, and verified,” she said.
“It is clearly not in the hands of any president of any country in the world to terminate an agreement of this sort. The president of the United States has many powers (but) not this one,” the EU foreign policy chief pointed out.
Mogherini underlined the EU’s determination to abide by the JCPOA, noting that the bloc expects the other parties to the deal to adopt the same stance.
“We cannot afford as an international community, as Europe for sure, to dismantle an agreement that is working and delivering,” she said.
The U.K.’s Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also released a joint statement confirming their support for the deal.
“As I have reported to the Board of Governors, the nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under the JCPOA are being implemented,” the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in a statement following Trump’s announcement.
“The IAEA’s verification and monitoring activities address all the nuclear-related elements under the JCPOA. They are undertaken in an impartial and objective manner and in accordance with the modalities defined by the JCPOA and standard safeguards practice,” the UN nuclear watchdog’s chief added.
Tehran has slammed Trump’s decision as “delusional”, with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani adding that Washington “is more isolated than ever” and cannot change the nuclear deal unilaterally.
While the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif posted his robust response on Twitter.
The 2015 agreement had agreed to lift longtime, economic sanctions on the Iranian government and its citizens, in exchange for the country’s gradually-decreased production of enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium. The IAEA was tasked with overseeing Iran’s compliance with the deal.
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