US will pay high price if Trump scraps JCPOA: President Rouhani

President Hassan Rouhani says Washington will pay a high price if US President Donald Trump carries out his threats to scrap the historic nuclear deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015.

“Leaving such an agreement would carry a high cost for the United States of America,” Rouhani said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour in New York on Monday.

“I do not believe Americans would be willing to pay such a high price for something that will be useless for them,” he added.

The Iranian chief executive, who is in New York to take part in the 72nd annual session of the United Nations General Assembly, further emphasized that the Trump administration’s move to scrap the accord "will yield no results for the United States.”

However, Rouhani warned that such an action “will generally decrease and chip away at international trust placed in the Unites States of America."

President Rouhani made the remarks amid growing concerns about the future of the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was signed by Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany on July 14, 2015 and went into effect on January 16, 2016.

Meanwhile the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano on Monday once again confirmed that Iran was implementing its commitments under the JCPOA.

Amano made the remarks in his opening address to the IAEA's 61st General Conference in Vienna, a week after he told the 35-member Board of Governors that Iran had lived up to its commitments under the JCPOA.

SS