Tillerson: Trump sees same flaws in Iran nuclear deal of N. Korean agreements

by WorldTribune Staff, September 20, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump “wants to redo” the Iran nuclear deal, assessing that the same “kick the can down the road” mistakes governments made with North Korea were made in negotiating the Iran deal, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sept. 19.

“I think we’re all well familiar with the flaws of the Iranian nuclear deal, and the most glaring flaw is the sunset provision,” Tillerson told Fox News.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: ‘We can almost start the countdown clock as to when’ Iran ‘will resume their nuclear weapons capability.’ / State Department photo

“We just spoke about North Korea and this is what governments in the past did with North Korea. They entered into agreements that were short lived or easily cheated on, and I think that’s the president’s assessment of the Iranian nuclear agreement.”

Trump, in his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 19, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) “an embarrassment” to the U.S. and “one of worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”

Tillerson told Fox News that the JCPOA is “not a stiff enough agreement. It doesn’t slow their program enough and holding them accountable is difficult under the agreement, but most importantly the agreement comes to an end, so we can almost start the countdown clock as to when they will resume their nuclear weapons capability.

“If we’re going to stick with the Iran deal there has to be changes made to it. The sunset provisions simply is not a sensible way forward,” Tillerson said.

Trump “really wants to redo that deal, renegotiate it. We do need the support of our allies to make the case as well to Iran that this deal really has to be revisited,” Tillerson said.

On October 15, Trump is due to decide whether Iran remains in compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sept. 18 warned that the U.S. will pay a “high cost” if Trump scraps the JCPOA.

Such an action “will yield no results for the United States but at the same time it will generally decrease and cut away and chip away at international trust placed in the Unites States of America,” Rouhani said.


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