Diplomacy

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President Trump to Announce Decision on Iranian Nuclear Deal at 2 PM on Tuesday

President Donald Trump said that he will make his decision about whether or not the United States will stay in the nuclear deal with Iran on Tuesday May 8 at 2 PM, Bloomberg News reported Monday.

It is unclear whether or not Trump will stay in the deal. If Trump does not waive nuclear-related sanctions by Saturday, the United States will exit the deal. Trump has said that if the flaws of the deal are not fixed by the deadline he would no longer waive sanctions. Trump has demanded that the deal no longer included sunset clauses that would allow Iran to ramp up its enrichment of uranium, that it prohibit Iran from developing ballistic missiles, and that Iran open up military sites for inspection, something it has refused to do.

America’s European allies have offered fixes to address some of the problems with the deal but not all of them.

Iranian leaders have struck a defiant tone in anticipation of a possible U.S. withdrawal from the deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran will “fiercely resist” attempts to “weaken” Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif asserted that an American withdrawal from the deal would lead to its own isolation.

Rouhani also said that the nuclear deal “completely allayed” concerns that Iran would seek a nuclear weapon.

Last Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented documents that Israeli intelligence had spirited out of Iran showing that Iran had indeed sought to “design, produce and test… five warheads, each with a 10 kiloton TNT yield, for integration on a missile.” Iran had preserved those documents, Netanyahu charged, to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program some time in the future.

[Photo: White House / YouTube ]