Iran president Hassan Rouhani said that his understanding was it was not possible for President-Elect Donald Trump to change the Iran nuclear deal.
“Iran’s understanding of the nuclear deal was that the accord was not concluded with one country or government but was approved by a resolution of the U.N. Security Council and there is no possibility that it can be changed by a single government,” Rouhani said on Iran state television, according to The Times of Israel.
The 2015 accord with world powers had Iran promise to not pursue nuclear weapons capability in exchange for lifting of sanctions. Trump, during the campaign, described the deal as “disastrous.”
Dan Shapiro, American ambassador to Israel, called on the incoming administration to keep the deal, which was brokered between the U.S. and six world powers.
The accord was “very successful in doing what it was designed to do, and that is to block systematically each pathway Iran had to achieve a nuclear weapon. Obviously we recommend the next administration continue, because it does fulfill that function,” Shapiro said.
Israel’s government had called the deal a “historic mistake,” but the ambassador said that U.S. and Israeli experts agree about Iran’s keeping to the terms of the agreement.
Rouhani, who has pushed for closer ties to Western countries, said the United States “no longer has the capacity to create Iranophobia and to create a consensus against Iran.” The Iranian economy benefits from the deal, and is “on a road where there is no possibility of going backwards,” Rouhani said.