The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has urged Donald Trump not to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, saying that the Middle East would become an even more dangerous place if such an important diplomatic victory was thrown away with nothing better to replace it. The US president is due to decide next week whether to withdraw from the agreement, by which Iran accepted nuclear inspections in return for a loosening of economic sanctions. There is intense political pressure from Tehran and the key European powers Britain, Germany and France to stick with the deal. “If the United States withdraws from the nuclear deal, then we will not stay in it,” foreign policy adviser Ali Akbar Velayati was quoted as saying by state television. The former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw also intervened to urge Washington not to scrap the deal.

Source: The Guardian May 03, 2018 09:23 UTC