TEHRAN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel has acknowledged that the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), “certainly has weaknesses” but says it should be preserved.

Merkel said in a speech to a labor union congress in Berlin that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 agreement marked “a shift in German-American, in European-American relations.”

“Britain, France and Germany were of the opinion that the agreement against Iran’s nuclear armament is an agreement that certainly has weaknesses, but an agreement we should stand by,” she added, the Associated Press reported.

MH/PA