US President Donald Trump says he will withdraw the US from an Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran.
Calling it “decaying and rotten”, he said the deal was “an embarrassment” to him “as a citizen”.
Going against advice from European allies, he said he would reimpose economic sanctions that were waived when the deal was signed in 2015.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said: “The US has announced that it doesn’t respect its commitments.”
In a statement, France, Germany and the UK – who are also signatories to the deal – have said they “regret” the American decision.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said the EU was “determined to preserve” the deal.
But Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he “fully supports” Trump’s “bold” withdrawal from a “disastrous” deal.
And the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the president had “absolutely made the right decision”.
“This was a terrible deal that only allowed Iran’s bad international conduct to worsen,” she said.
BBC reports that Trump had previously complained that the deal only limited Iran’s nuclear activities for a fixed period; had failed to stop the development of ballistic missiles; and had handed Iran a $100bn (£74bn) windfall that it used “as a slush fund for weapons, terror, and oppression” across the Middle East.
