Ali Shamkhani’s assessment came hot on the heels of the pronouncement by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that Moscow would not support Washington’s efforts to modify the pioneering deal, agreed under the stewardship of Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.
Furthermore, Mr Lavrov said the agreement’s collapse could also jeopardise dialogue with North Korea.
Speaking earlier today, Mr Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, said Mr Trump’s threats to withdraw from the nuclear deal were fanning “Iranophobia” and meant to deprive Tehran of the agreement’s economic benefits.
He said: “Scaring the international community with the decisions of a mad man is a repetitive tactic that has proved to be ineffective.”
Mr Trump has been a vocal critic of the deal, which is aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons while enabling the country to retain nuclear facilities, ever since it was ratified in April 2015 by the so called P5+1 (which consists of China, France, Russia, the UK and the United States, plus Germany), as well as the European Union.
He is seeking radical changes to the deal, which he claims has “terrible flaw” – and has threatened to scrap it in four months’ time unless he gets his way.
Meanwhile Mr Lavrov told a Moscow news conference: “We will not support what the United States is trying to do, changing the wording of the agreement, incorporating things that will be absolutely unacceptable for Iran.”
Mr Lavrov, who is Russia’s top diplomat, stressed that Russia will work to preserve the existing Iran nuclear deal, and warned that any threat to it also represented a threat to any diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea.
He suggested Pyongyang would look at how Iran had been treated by Washington and wonder if any deal it did with the United States on its own missile and nuclear programme would hold or also be called into question.
Mr Lavrov said: “If the deal is put aside and Iran is told, ‘you keep up with your obligations or we will impose sanctions again’, then you have to see it from North Korea’s point of view.
“They are being promised that sanctions will be lifted if they give up their nuclear programme. They will give it up, but no one will lift the sanctions against Pyongyang.”