Iran president: Trump won’t be able to harm the nuclear deal

Iran’s president said on Tuesday that his country will not allow incoming US President Donald Trump to “tear up” Iran’s landmark nuclear deal with world powers and also warned Tehran will react to any extension of American sanctions.

The comments by Hassan Rowhani came during a speech at the University of Tehran commemorating the killings of Iranian students protesting a visit by then-US Vice President Richard Nixon in 1953.

Rowhani’s remarks show the high-wire stakes he faces after Trump’s inauguration in trying to defend the deal struck by his moderate administration. The timing - during an annual remembrance of the students’ killing at the hands of the US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi’s security forces - also shows the internal challenges he faces from hard-liners already suspicious of America’s intentions.

“The US is our enemy,” Rowhani said. “They want to put pressure on us as much as they can.”

Rowhani never mentioned Trump by name in his speech, though he prefaced his remarks with noting that “some man ... elected in the US.”

“Whatever plans he has, it will be revealed later,” Rowhani said. “He may desire to weaken the nuclear deal. He may desire to rip up the deal. Do you suppose we will allow this? Will our nation allow this?”

On the campaign trail, Trump called the multi-nation deal “catastrophic” and vowed to renegotiate it, without explaining how.

Rowhani also warned Iran “will show a reaction” if outgoing President Barack Obama signs a law extending some of America’s sanctions authority by 10 years. The law, first passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed several times since then, allows the US to sanction companies for doing business with Iran.

Rowhani has described extending the sanctions as a violation of the nuclear deal. The White House deemed the bill unnecessary but said it didn’t violate the international accord.