TEHRAN - Ben Rhodes, former President Barack Obama’s adviser, has said that U.S. President Donald Trump quit the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, because Obama negotiated it.

“Did anyone really need a leaked document from the UK Ambassador to know that Trump pulled out of the Iran Deal because Obama negotiated it?” he tweeted on Sunday.

Kim Darroch, the former British ambassador to the U.S., said Trump seemed to be discarding the Iran nuclear deal for “personality reasons,” as the deal had been agreed to by Obama, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.

Darroch said the Trump administration was “set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism” in its decision to abandon the JCPOA.

The paper also reported that Darroch hinted at discord brewing between Trump’s closest aides and said the White House had failed to produce a “day-after” plan on how to handle the aftermath of withdrawing from the deal.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has described Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal when it was “working” as “lacking rationale, legal basis and any common sense”. 

NA/PA