Report: Iran prepares to withdraw from parts of nuclear deal

Iran on Wednesday will announce it is partially withdrawing from the nuclear deal it struck with world powers, its state-run news agency reported, a year to the day that President Donald Trump pulled America from the accord.

The terms of the withdrawal remain unclear, though the IRNA news agency said President Hassan Rouhani will explain Iran's decision in letters to leaders of Britain, France and Germany that will be handed to ambassadors in Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif separately will write to the European Union, the agency said.

The semi-official ISNA news agency reported late Tuesday that Zarif had left for Moscow to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss bilateral and international issues, without elaborating.

Details of the letters, all to signers of the 2015 accord, will not be publicly disclosed, it said.

The letters will come as officials in the Islamic Republic previously warned that Iran might increase its uranium enrichment, potentially pulling away from a deal it has sought to salvage for months. Already, the White House has announced the deployment of a US aircraft carrier and a bomber wing to the Persian Gulf over unspecified threats from Iran.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog says Iran has continued to comply with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw it limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. But American sanctions have wreaked havoc on Iran's already-anemic economy, while promised help from European partners in the deal haven't alleviated the pain.

The US last week stopped issuing waivers for countries importing Iranian crude oil, a crucial source of cash for Iran's government. It also halted waivers allowing Iran to store excess heavy water in Oman and to swap enriched uranium for raw yellowcake with Russia.

Trump campaigned on a promise to tear up the deal struck by his predecessor, Barack Obama. While Trump has sought to dismantle much of Obama's policies, he particularly criticised the Iran nuclear deal for failing to address Tehran's ballistic missile program and what he described as its malign influence across the rest of the Mideast.

A statement Sunday night from US national security adviser John Bolton said the USS Abraham Lincoln, other ships in the carrier's strike group and a bomber wing would deploy to the Mideast. Bolton blamed "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings," without elaborating.

"The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces," Bolton said.

A spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Keivan Khosravi, dismissed Bolton's comments as "psychological warfare."