'Reaction will be unpleasant, if US ditches JCPOA"

"If the US decides to exit from the JCPOA the reaction it will receive from Iran and the international community will be unpleasant," underlined Mohammad Javad Zarif while addressing reporters in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, before returning to Tehran.

He added that Iran has on multiple occasions stressed that in the case of such an event it will safeguard its national interests.

Zarif further noted that the JCPOA is a multilateral deal which cannot be renegotiated.
The Iranian foreign minister's remarks come ahead of a May 12 deadline for US President Donald Trump to decide whether to extend waivers of economic sanctions on Iran.

ran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the US, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany signed the nuclear agreement on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16, 2016.

Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against Tehran.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly described the JCPOA, which was negotiated under his predecessor, Barack Obama, as “the worst and most one-sided transaction Washington has ever entered into,” a characterization he often used during his presidential campaign, and threatened to tear it up.

Trump has threatened to pull out of the JCPOA unless Congress and America's European allies help "fix" it with a follow-up agreement within a 120-day deadline.

/SR