US has 'significant issues' with Iran N-deal: Tillerson

The US has "significant issues" with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said after meeting his Iranian counterpart here amidst international efforts to implement the crucial agreement.
Iran inked the nuclear agreement deal with the US, China, Russia, France, Germany and the UK and is required to severely curb its nuclear activities in return for global sanctions relief.
At a speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week, US President Donald Trump described the deal as an "embarrassment". He later told reporters that he had decided what to do about the agreement but would not reveal what he had decided.

The Trump administration has until October 15 to decide whether to certify that Iran is complying with the deal. If it fails to do so, Congress could re-introduce sanctions dropped when the accord was implemented.
Tillerson, who met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif here on sidelines of the UNGA meet, said, "We clearly have significant issues with the agreement."
"The President has been quite clear and articulate as to his concerns about the agreement itself, the thoroughness of the agreement, the enforcement of the agreement," he told reporters.

Tillerson said while Iran has been in "technical compliance" with the nuclear deal, the aspirations of the agreement have not been met.

"Regrettably, since the agreement was confirmed, we have seen anything but a more peaceful, stable region. And this is the real issue. That is why we talk about Iran defaulting on these expectations, because those expectations clearly have not been met," he said.
He said since the deal was struck Iran has continued to "prop up" the Assad regime and its "horrible way" in which it has brought violence to its own people and accused it of continuing to engage in "malicious" cyber activity.
Iran has aggressively developed and tested ballistic missiles in defiance of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, thereby threatening the security of the US and the stability of the region, he said.

"They have provided weapons and training forces to deploy to create instability throughout the region -- in Yemen, in Syria, and in Iraq," Tillerson said.
He also accused Iran of carrying out "provocative operations" in the Gulf itself against US naval and coalition vessels when they try to "peacefully" transit the region, "threatening the very freedom of navigation through this very important waterway."
"So, I think it's pretty difficult to say that the expectations of the parties who negotiated this agreement have been met. Perhaps the technical aspects have, but in the broader context the aspiration has not," Tillerson said, adding recently the US has taken action to counter those activities.

Tillerson said additional sanctions were recently put in place to deal with the ballistic missile testing, the cyber activity, these other "destabilising" activities.
"We are going to continue to monitor Iran's activities and we will take additional steps, none of which put us in any way contrary to our obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). We are fully compliant with the JCPOA.
"The activities we are sanctioning Iran for carrying out are not covered under the technical agreement, the JCPOA itself," he said.
According to the top American diplomat, the agreement has a very concerning shortcoming that the President has mentioned as well, and that is the "sunset clause", where one can almost set the countdown clock to when Iran can resume its nuclear weapons programmes, its nuclear activities.

"And that is something that the President simply finds unacceptable. All of you are keenly aware of the circumstances we are dealing with North Korea," Tillerson said.
"When we look at the history of North Korea's weapons development programme, in many senses we've seen this before
agreements that just simply pushed it to another government, another administration, to deal with," he said.
Tillerson said President Trump has made it clear he does not intend to do that in this case.
"He takes his responsibility in this particular matter quite seriously and that is the reason he is very, very carefully considering the decision of whether we find the JCPOA to continue to serve the security interests of the American people or not.

"We expect Iran to fulfil its commitments. We're going to ... until that time, we will fulfil our commitments and the President has the matter under consideration," he said.