“Allegations, threats and profanity will never intimidate Iranians. Trump will eventually discover this; as every predecessor did,” Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted after Trump officially announced on Friday that he would not certify Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers.
“Everyone knew Trump’s friendship was for sale to the highest bidder. We now know that his geography is too,” Zarif wrote in another Tweet, referring to Trump’s using of the "Arabian Gulf” instead of the Persian Gulf in his speech.
“No wonder supporters of Trump’s inane Iran speech are those bastions of democracy in the Persian Gulf: KSA, UAE and Bahrain,” he noted.
Following Trump’s speech, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that the Riyadh regime backs Trump's “firm strategy” on Iran.
“The kingdom backs and welcomes the firm strategy on Iran and its aggressive policy that was announced by US President Donald Trump,” it said in a statement.
Trump called Iran a “rogue” state and repeated Washington’s allegations that Tehran sponsors terrorism and continues “aggression in the Middle East and all around the world.”
Zarif denounced Trump’s hostile rhetoric against Iran in another Tweet, saying, “For the definition of rogue, compare Trump’s words with President Rouhani’s response.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani slammed Trump’s speech against the Islamic Republic as nothing more than insults and delirious talk, urging the US president to brush up on his world history and geography to improve his comprehension of international obligations and global ethics, etiquette and conventions.
Apart from his refusal to certify the JCPOA, Trump also warned in his strategic review of US policy on Iran that he might ultimately terminate the deal, in defiance of other world powers and undermining a landmark victory of multilateral diplomacy.
While Trump did not pull Washington out of the nuclear deal, he gave the US Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions against Tehran that were lifted under the pact. Reimposing sanctions would put the US at odds with other signatories to the accord and the European Union.