Global arms control experts warn Trump against scrapping Iran nuclear deal

Over 80 prominent international disarmament experts have urged US President Donald Trump to reconsider his possible plans to unravel Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers, including the US.

In a Wednesday statement organized by the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based disarmament advocacy group, experts in nuclear nonproliferation diplomacy from around the world hailed the deal as a “net plus for international nuclear nonproliferation efforts,” The New York Times reported.

The experts warned Trump that “unilateral action by the United States, especially on the basis of unsupported contentions of Iranian cheating, would isolate the United States.”

Some of the signatories to the statement included Nobuyasu Abe, commissioner of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission; Hans Blix, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Thomas E. Shea, a former safeguards official at the International Atomic Energy Agency; and Thomas M. Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation.

Director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association Kelsey Davenport expressed concern that Washington’s possible plans to scrap the Iran deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will eliminate any possibility of resolving North Korea’s nuclear weapons crisis through negotiation.

“Given that we are already struggling to contain the North Korean nuclear and missile crisis, it would be extremely unwise for the president to initiate steps that could unravel the highly successful 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which would create a second major nonproliferation crisis,” she said.

SS