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After US Exit, Iran Urges Other Signatories to Preserve Nuclear Deal


FILE - Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks with the media after a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini at the Europa building in Brussels, May 15, 2018.
FILE - Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks with the media after a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini at the Europa building in Brussels, May 15, 2018.

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is calling the U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal illegal and urging other signatories not to follow its lead.

State-run Iranian media said Sunday Zarif sent a letter to the foreign ministers of the remaining nations in the agreement - Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, asking them to "make up" for the Iranian losses brought on by the U.S. withdrawal if they want to save the deal.

Zarif called the 2015 nuclear agreement the result of "accurate, sensitive and balanced multilateral talks."

"The illegal withdrawal of the U.S. government ... especially bullying methods used by this government to bring other governments in line, has discredited the rule of law while challenging the principles of the U.N. charter and efficiency of international bodies," Zarif wrote.

President Donald Trump announced last month the United States was dropping out of what he calls a "horrible one-sided deal" that gives all the advantages to Iran.

Trump says the agreement, negotiated in part by the Obama administration, would allow Iran to resume some of its nuclear program in the next decade. He says it also does nothing to rein in Iran's ballistic missile program or its support for extremists across the Middle East, including the Syrian regime.

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both accuse Iran of violating the nuclear agreement - a claim refuted by international inspectors.

Trump has threatened to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

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