Iran is preparing in the event that Trump annuls or attempts to renegotiate the nuclear deal.
Iran says that if US President Donald Trump carries through with his vow to “tear up” the controversial nuclear deal with Tehran, it will quickly relaunch its nuclear program.
Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s vice-president and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Sunday that if Trump wants to tear up the deal, Iran will “act appropriately.”
“We can very easily snap back and go back… not only to where we were, but a much higher position technologically speaking,” Salehi stated, according to Iran’s Fars news.
Tehran stated several times that the nuclear deal has benefited its nuclear capabilities. “We did once before… that deal didn’t work and Iran was able to go back to its nuclear activities with high speed,” Salehi said.
“I don’t want to see that day. I don’t want to make a decision in that course, but we are prepared,” he stated ominously.
Trump has called the deal the worst ever made and promised during his campaign to seek a better one.
Salehi said he watched the inauguration with the expectation that Trump would mention Iran or the nuclear deal, but he did not mention either, and in his opinion that was “positive.”
In an interview with CBC News, Salehi also dismissed the new US administration’s intention to develop a “state of the art” missile defense system to stave off attacks from North Korea and Iran.
That intention was announced Saturday on the White House website, within minutes of Trump’s inauguration.
“The United States — it’s more than 10,000 miles away from Iran, and we have never intended to manufacture missiles that would go that far,” Salehi said. It is a “politicized” decision that is “against all rationality.”
