Iran Foreign Minister Zarif: Trump 'Widening the Mistrust'

Donald Trump's potential move to decertify the Iran nuclear deal put international trust in the United States in danger, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Sunday.

"Nobody else will trust any U.S. administration to engage in any long-term negotiation because the length of any commitment, the duration of any commitment from now on with any U.S. administration would be the reminder of the term of that president," Zarif told CBS's "Face the Nation."

Zarif said the Iran nuclear deal was not a "bilateral treaty," pointing to the resolution of the United Nations Security Council, and it was based on "mutual mistrust," which will now be "widening."

"None of us ever trusted the United States," Zarif said. "This deal was not based on trust. It was based on mutual mistrust. And I think that was the strength of this deal. It's not something bad about the deal. It's the strength of the deal, but unfortunately, the way President Trump is handling it, it's widening the mistrust, not only between Iran and the United States, but between the global community and the United States where the U.S. is no longer not just unpredictable but unreliable."

Zarif denounced the Trump administration's "withdrawal doctrine," which is working to undo all the "concessions" countries make to get the United States into deals.

"You see, this administration is withdrawing from everything – somebody called it withdrawal doctrine for this administration," the foreign minister told CBS's Elizabeth Palmer. "It's withdrawing from NAFTA. It's withdrawing from Trans Pacific Partnership. It's withdrawing from UNESCO. It's withdrawing from everything.

"So people cannot trust anymore the word of the United States. You see, in order to bring United States on board on many of these international agreements, a lot of people make a lot of concessions. Now nobody is going to make any concessions to the United States because they know that the next U.S. president will come back and say, 'It wasn't enough, we're not satisfied.'"

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