Iran threatens to quit nuclear deal 'within hours' over new sanctions

Iran threatened Tuesday to pull out of the Obama-brokered nuclear deal "within hours" over the United States' decision to impose new sanctions on the country, Reuters and Al Jazeera report. "Those who try to return to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past delusions," said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a televised address. "If [the United States wants] to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time, not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days, we will return to our previous situation very much more stronger."

Iran agreed in the 2015 deal with the U.S., Russia, China, and three European powers to curb its nuclear program in order to be protected against new sanctions. Under Trump, the U.S. Treasury has since imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms over Iran's development of a ballistic missile program, which Iran claims is exempt from the treaty, in addition to Congress' newly proposed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea, signed into law by Trump in August.

"The world has clearly seen that under Trump, America has ignored international agreements and, in addition to undermining the [nuclear deal], has broken its word on the Paris agreement and the Cuba accord," added Rouhani.

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Trump has expressed his own frustrations with the Iran deal; he confirmed in July that Iran was complying with the nuclear agreement despite it being "a bad deal for the United States," The New York Times reports. "We receive contradictory signals," said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the time. "So we don't know which one to interpret in what way."