Powerful hard-liner: Iran should stop honouring nuclear deal

Nov 14, 2019 | 2:06 AM

TEHRAN, Iran — A member of Iran’s powerful Guardian Council says the Islamic Republic should stop honouring all terms of the collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers amid tensions with the U.S.

Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei says that while Iran has “shown a lot of patience,” it has been more than a year since President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled America out of the accord.

The Guardian Council is a 12-member panel that vets candidates and laws in the Islamic Republic. The council signed off on the nuclear deal in 2015, but Kadkhodaei’s comments signal the hard-liners’ willingness to confront the West using Iran’s atomic program.

Iran has in the past months increasingly broken restrictions imposed by the deal, which saw Tehran limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.