Iranian diplomat: Trump’s decision to decertify nuke deal harms US credibility

Iran’s foreign minister said in an interview released Saturday that President Trump’s decision to declare Iran noncompliant with an Obama-era nuclear deal will harm the United States’s credibility with foreign leaders.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the 2015 deal on behalf of Iran, told CBS News that Trump’s decision sets a precedent that any U.S. foreign policy be viewed as expiring every four years.

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“Nobody else will trust any U.S. administration to engage in any long-term negotiation because the length of any commitment, the duration of any commitment from now on with any U.S. administration would be the remainder of the term of that president,” Zarif said.

Zarif said Tehran would remain in the agreement reached between the U.S., Iran and give other world powers. Zarif pointed to other countries’ support for the deal as a sign that it would move forward despite Trump’s vow to declare the country noncompliant.

The leaders of Britain, Germany and France released a joint statement on Friday after Trump’s announcement, defending the deal as “the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy” and “a major step towards ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is not diverted for military purposes.”

Zarif told CBS he hopes for a diplomatic “reset” with the Trump administration.

“I believe the Trump administration is closing its eyes on the realities of our region. We believe it will be important for the United States, for the Trump administration to exercise a reset in its cognitive disorder with regard to our region,” Zarif said.

Trump declared that Iran was in violation of the “spirit” of the agreement, but stopped short of withdrawing from the deal. Instead, he called for Congress to pass new benchmarks that Iran would need to meet in order to stave off nuclear-related sanctions down the road.

“I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said.

“We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,” he added.