The U.S. has certified with Congress that Iran is legally in compliance on the nuclear deal, but senior Trump administration officials said both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Donald Trump will couch that certification with an accusation that Iran is “unquestionably in default of the spirit of the [agreement].”

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The officials pointed to “a range of malign activities” including Iran’s ballistic missile development, support of militant groups in the region and Syria's Assad regime, its hostility to Israel and its continued detention of foreigners including U.S. citizens.

The officials said that moving forward the administration will “employ a strategy” that seeks to address Iran’s aggressive behavior in the region.

They did not specifically outline any measures they would press for but said they expect to implement new sanctions in the near future targeting Iran’s ballistic missile program and other “misbehavior” in the region.

In addition, the officials said they would seek to strengthen their relationships with partners in the region to “identify areas of ambiguity” that Iran has sought to take advantage of to potentially skirt parts of the deal.

The Trump administration's announcement tonight was part of an obligation the U.S. has under the deal to certify every 90 days that Iran is complying with the agreement. The last time the administration announced its certification of Iran's compliance, Secretary Tillerson blasted the country for its behavior in the region and said the Trump administration will address the agreement's failures to contain Iran.

Earlier Monday evening, the Foreign Minister of Iran, Mohammed Javad Zarif, took questions while at the Council on Foreign Relations and defended his country's compliance with the deal.

"I think our compliance is rather straightforward because it’s not for guessing whether we have complied or not," Zarif said. "That is very clear, in black and white in the reports of the [International Atomic Energy Agency] which is hardly a sympathizer of Iran. That’s so you don’t need to ask me whether we’ve complied."

Zarif continued that Iran believes that for the U.S., including under the Obama administration, it is "more important to maintain the sanctions that remain rather than remove the sanctions."

He also argued that U.S. sanctions do not work, saying, "Let me tell you something, the United States should reconsider its approach to sanctions. Sanctions have never been an asset for the United States ... When the U.S. government started to impose nuclear sanctions on Iran we only had 200 centrifuges. When they started negotiating with us in order to remove those sanctions, we had 20,000 centrifuges. So if you want to see the result of sanctions – just 19,800 centrifuges is the net result of sanctions. So sanctions do not produce outcome."

ABC News' Conor Finnegan and Ely Brown contributed to this report. </s> The Trump administration has told Congress for a second time that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal and can keep enjoying sanctions relief, even as it insisted Tehran would face consequences for breaching “the spirit” of the deal.

President Donald Trump, who lambasted the 2015 pact as a candidate, gave himself more time to decide whether to dismantle it or let it stand. Instead, senior Trump administration officials sought to emphasise their deep concerns about Iran’s non-nuclear behaviour, saying transgressions won’t go unpunished.

In a shift from Trump’s previous threat to “rip up” the deal, officials said the administration was working with US allies to try to fix the deal’s flaws, including the expiration of some nuclear restrictions after a decade or more. The officials also said the US would slap Tehran with new sanctions penalising it for developing ballistic missiles and other activity.

Trump, secretary of state Rex Tillerson and “the entire administration judge that Iran is unquestionably in default of the spirit” of the agreement, one official said. That assessment carries no legal force, while Trump’s certification that Iran is technically complying clears the way for sanctions to remain lifted.

The late-night announcement capped a day of frenzied, last-minute decision-making by the president, exposing deep and lingering divisions within his administration about how to deal with a top national security issue.

Since early last week, Trump’s administration had been prepared to make the certification, a quarterly requirement. Trump first told Congress in April that Iran was indeed complying. With no final decision on his broader Iran policy, the White House had planned to let the status quo stand for another three months.

Iran will continue receiving the same sanctions relief that it did under former President Barack Obama.

In April, when Trump made his first certification, he paired it with new sanctions for non-nuclear behaviour to show there was no softening of his stance toward the Islamic Republic. Earlier on Monday, the White House had told outside experts it would repeat that playbook, by punishing more than a dozen Iranian individuals, organisations and procurement networks involved in ballistic missiles and other nefarious behaviour.

But the day came and went with no such announcement, although officials said they expected more sanctions would eventually be coming. It was unclear why the administration held off or for how long, but typically the treasury department prefers to issue new sanctions during business hours.

“We receive contradictory signals,” Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations before the decision was announced. “So we don’t know which one to interpret in what way.”

For Trump, a vocal critic of the deal, the obligation to report to Congress on Iran’s conformity has created an unwelcome, tri-monthly headache. Still undecided about whether to withdraw from the deal, Trump must either vouch for Tehran’s compliance or try to claim Iran is breaching it — even though the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitors the deal says it is not.

In its condemnation of Iran, senior officials emphasised several longstanding US concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programs, human rights abuses and support for terrorism in the region. They also criticised Iran for detaining US citizens and limiting freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf.

Under the deal struck by Obama and other world leaders, Iran agreed to roll back its nuclear program — long suspected of being aimed at developing atomic weapons — in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. The deal does not address global concerns about Iran’s non-nuclear activities, but also doesn’t prevent the US and others from punishing Iran for those activities. Iran remains on the state department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support of anti-Israel groups.

Scuttling the deal would put further distance between Trump and foreign leaders who are already upset over his move to withdraw from the Paris global climate change accord. Other powers that brokered the nuclear deal along with the US have said there’s no appetite for renegotiating it. </s> WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration on Monday declared that Iran was complying with its nuclear agreement with world powers, but warned that Tehran was in default of the spirit of the accord and that Washington would look for ways to strengthen it.

It was the second time Trump certified Iranian compliance with the agreement since he took office in January, despite criticizing it during the 2016 campaign as "the worst deal ever."

Trump administration officials, briefing reporters on Monday on the decision, said new economic sanctions against Iran were being prepared over its ballistic missile program and for contributing to regional tensions.

Under U.S. law, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days of Iran's compliance with the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Trump had faced a congressionally mandated deadline of Monday to decide.

A senior administration official said Iran was judged in compliance of the 2015 nuclear deal but that Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson believed Iran "remains one of the most dangerous threats to U.S. interests and to regional stability."

The official ticked off a list of accusations about Iranian behavior in the region, including ballistic missile development and proliferation, support for terrorism and militancy, complicity in atrocities committed in Syria and threats to Gulf waterways.

"The president and the secretary of state judge that these Iranian activities severely undermine the intent of the JCPOA, which was to contribute to regional and international peace and security. As a result, the president, the secretary of state and the entire administration judge that Iran is unquestionably in default of the spirit of the JCPOA," the official said.

The landmark deal struck with Iran by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany is aimed at preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon by imposing time-limited restrictions and strict international monitoring on its nuclear program. In return, Tehran won relief from punishing international economic sanctions.

Iran denies seeking nuclear arms. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, concluded in December 2015, however, that Iran worked on the design of a missile-borne nuclear warhead until 2009.

While lifting nuclear-linked sanctions, the United States maintains sanctions related to Iran's ballistic missile program, human rights record and what Washington charges is its support for international terrorism.

The senior administration official said the Trump administration intended to employ a strategy that would "address the totality of Iran's malign behavior" and not just focus on the Iran nuclear agreement.

The administration is also looking at ways to strengthen the nuclear deal and more strictly enforce it, the official said, citing concerns that the deal over time would let Iran openly pursue industrial-scale nuclear fuel enrichment.

"We're in a period where we´re going to be working with our allies to explore options for addressing the JCPOA's flaws, which there are many," the official said. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney) </s> The US has sanctioned five Iranian firms which Washington say is involved in the country's ballistic missile program, thus breaking the spirit of Iran's nuclear deal with the P5+1 countries.

The Trump administration's latest salvo against Tehran comes despite the UN aligned International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) consistently confirming Iran's full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The new economic measures against five Iranian-based entities of the Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group prohibits American firms from doing business with the firms. The sanctions further stipulates 'freezing' its properties in the US. "These sanctions target key entities involved in Iran's ballistic missile program, which the Iranian regime prioritizes over the economic well-being of the Iranian people," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

The US accuses the five companies of providing launchers, guidance systems, and propellants for Iran’s missile program, which Washington believes violates the goodwill of the 2015 nuclear deal, the signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama's presidency which Donald Trump has vowed to tear apart.

The deal, sealed by the US, UK, Russia, France, China, and Germany, places limitations on Iran's controversial nuclear energy program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran. There was, however, no agreement among the P5+1 to push for binding restrictions on Iran's ballistic-missile program. The IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that Iran is in full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also called the Iran deal.

Washington, however, claims that Tehran's missile program violates UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed Tehran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 states – the five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany. The new sanctions come just days before the US deadline to make a decision on whether or not to certify Iran's compliance with the nuclear agreement.

Over the last few days, Trump has attacked Iran on Twitter, accusing the previous administration of funding terrorism by signing the landmark accord. The US president, along with senior administration officials have also expressed vociferous support for the anti-government protesters in the Central Asian country who are rallying against socio-economic conditions in the country.

On Thursday, Mnuchin echoed Trump's policy, warning that Washington might soon slap additional sanctions on Iran which will target the country's perceived human right abuses amid the deadly anti-government protests in the country. "The United States will continue to decisively counter the Iranian regime's malign activity, including additional sanctions targeting human rights abuses. We will not hesitate to call out the regime's economic mismanagement, and diversion of significant resources to fund threatening missile systems at the expense of its citizenry."

Trump's increasingly hostile stance towards Iran comes at a time when Tehran accused its detractors of interfering in their domestic affairs. Undeterred, Trump tweeted Wednesday, "You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!"

READ MORE: Iran slams ‘grotesque’ US meddling & calls for regime change through social media

Amid the rapidly escalating tensions, Moscow warned Washington against meddling in Iran’s internal affairs, critisizing the US for using the situation in the Islamic Republic to scupper the nuclear agreement with Tehran. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed out to his American counterparts that the P5+1 initiative was not a bilateral agreement and therefore cannot be unilaterally amended.

“The current situation, when Washington falls to the temptation to use the moment to raise new issues regarding the JCPOA, shows the deliberate attempt to undermine and shatter the international community's commitment the JCPOA,” Ryabkov told TASS Thursday. </s> Washington: President Donald Trump`s administration on Monday declared that Iran was complying with its nuclear agreement with world powers, but warned that Tehran was in default of the spirit of the accord and that Washington would look for ways to strengthen it.

It was the second time Trump certified Iranian compliance with the agreement since he took office in January, despite criticizing it during the 2016 campaign as "the worst deal ever."

Trump administration officials, briefing reporters on Monday on the decision, said new economic sanctions against Iran were being prepared over its ballistic missile program and for contributing to regional tensions.

Under U.S. law, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days of Iran`s compliance with the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Trump had faced a congressionally mandated deadline of Monday to decide.

A senior administration official said Iran was judged in compliance of the 2015 nuclear deal but that Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson believed Iran "remains one of the most dangerous threats to U.S. interests and to regional stability."

The official ticked off a list of accusations about Iranian behavior in the region, including ballistic missile development and proliferation, support for terrorism and militancy, complicity in atrocities committed in Syria and threats to Gulf waterways.

"The president and the secretary of state judge that these Iranian activities severely undermine the intent of the JCPOA, which was to contribute to regional and international peace and security. As a result, the president, the secretary of state and the entire administration judge that Iran is unquestionably in default of the spirit of the JCPOA," the official said. </s> WASHINGTON - The Trump administration told Congress for a second time Monday that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal and can keep enjoying sanctions relief, even as it insisted Tehran would face consequences for breaching "the spirit" of the deal.

President Donald Trump, who lambasted the 2015 pact as a candidate, gave himself more time to decide whether to scuttle it or let it stand. Instead, senior Trump administration officials sought to emphasize their deep concerns about Iran's non-nuclear behavior and vowed that those transgressions won't go unpunished.

In a shift from Trump's previous threat to "rip up" the deal, officials said the administration was working with U.S. allies to try to fix the deal's flaws, including the expiration of some nuclear restrictions after a decade or more. The officials also said the U.S. would slap Tehran with new sanctions penalizing it for developing ballistic missiles and other activity.

Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and "the entire administration judge that Iran is unquestionably in default of the spirit" of the agreement, one official said. That assessment carries no legal force, while Trump's certification that Iran is technically complying clears the way for sanctions to remain lifted.

The late-night announcement capped a day of frenzied, last-minute decision-making by the president, exposing deep and lingering divisions within his administration about how to deal with a top national security issue.

Since early last week, Trump's administration had been prepared to make the certification, a quarterly requirement. Trump first told Congress in April that Iran was indeed complying. With no final decision on his broader Iran policy, the White House had planned to let the status quo stand for another three months.

As planned, a public rollout began Monday morning involving close choreography among the White House, the State Department and other parts of government. The White House National Security Council distributed talking points to other agencies while national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin briefed outside policy experts who frequently comment on such issues in the media.

Then, just as the White House was preparing to brief reporters, the announcement was abruptly halted and the talking points temporarily recalled as the president reconsidered the decision, according to officials and others briefed by the administration. Among the options Trump discussed with Tillerson and other aides was to extend the sanctions relief but refuse to certify Iran's compliance, several officials said.

With a midnight deadline just hours away, officials disclosed the final decision to reporters on a chaotic conference call on the condition that it not be published until the White House had a chance to formally notify Congress.

Ultimately, the president's decision was the same on the substance to what his administration had been planning all along. Although the language was toughened to add the declaration that Iran is "in default of the spirit" of the deal, Iran will continue receiving the same sanctions relief that it did under former President Barack Obama.

In April, when Trump made his first certification, he paired it with new sanctions for non-nuclear behavior to show there was no softening of his stance toward the Islamic Republic. Earlier Monday, the White House had told outside experts it would repeat that playbook, by punishing more than a dozen Iranian individuals, organizations and procurement networks involved in ballistic missiles and other nefarious behavior.

But the day came and went with no such announcement, although officials said they expected more sanctions would eventually be coming. It was unclear why the administration held off or for how long, but typically the Treasury Department prefers to issue new sanctions during business hours.

"We receive contradictory signals," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations before the decision was announced. "So we don't know which one to interpret in what way."

For Trump, a vocal critic of the deal, the obligation to report to Congress on Iran's conformity has created an unwelcome, tri-monthly headache. Still undecided about whether to withdraw from the deal, Trump must either vouch for Tehran's compliance or try to claim Iran is breaching it — even though the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitors the deal says it is not.

In its condemnation of Iran, senior officials emphasized several longstanding U.S. concerns about Iran's ballistic missile programs, human rights abuses and support for terrorism in the region. They also criticized Iran for detaining U.S. citizens and limiting freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf.

Under the deal struck by Obama and other world leaders, Iran agreed to roll back its nuclear program — long suspected of being aimed at developing atomic weapons — in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. The deal does not address global concerns about Iran's non-nuclear activities, but also doesn't prevent the U.S. and others from punishing Iran for those activities. Iran remains on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support of anti-Israel groups.

Scuttling the deal would put further distance between Trump and foreign leaders who are already upset over his move to withdraw from the Paris global climate change accord. Other powers that brokered the nuclear deal along with the U.S. have said there's no appetite for renegotiating it. </s> The U.S. Treasury Department announced additional sanctions on Iran on Friday, less than a week after a ballistic missile test prompted the Trump administration to accuse Iran of violating an international a weapons agreement.

The newly announced sanctions target people and businesses the U.S. government says support Iran's ballistic missile program and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, according to a Treasury Department statement. They are in line with previous sanctions, implemented over what then-President Barack Obama called Iran's "violations of human rights, for its support of terrorism and for its ballistic missile program."

The acting director of the Treasury unit in charge of sanctions, John Smith, said the latest sanctions do not violate the international nuclear deal reached with Iran in 2015, which required Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

A top Treasury Department official tells NPR's Michele Kelemen that the actions are part of the U.S. efforts to counter Iranian "malign activity abroad."

The public text of the sanctions lists 12 companies and 13 individuals, blocking assets and prohibiting U.S. citizens from dealing with them. Among the individuals, four are listed as Iranian citizens, two are Lebanese, one is Chinese, and one holds a passport from the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. It also announced changes to previous, unrelated sanctions on a 14th individual.

The businesses are based both inside and outside Iran.

According to the Treasury Department, the sanctions target:



Hours before the sanctions were announced, President Trump addressed Iran in a tweet, writing, "Iran is playing with fire — they don't appreciate how 'kind' President Obama was to them. Not me!"

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted an hour later that "we will never use our weapons against anyone, except in self-defense."

Both U.S. and Iranian officials weighed in on whether Sunday's missile test broke the terms of the nuclear deal.

Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner told The Associated Press on Monday that the U.S. was looking into whether the test violated a 2015 side agreement to the nuclear accord, and that the U.S. would "hold Iran accountable" if it did.

Zarif said Tuesday, that "the missile issue is not part of the nuclear deal."

National Security Adviser Mike Flynn said a day later that former President Barack Obama had gone too easy on Iran, but that "as of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice."

Flynn also listed the administration's grievances with Tehran, including its test of a ballistic missile and what he said were attacks by proxy forces in Yemen on U.S. and Middle Eastern ships, as we reported.

One of the incidents he appeared to be referring to occurred in October 2016, when U.S. Navy ships off Yemen's southwestern coast came under missile attacks twice in four days.

According to the Pentagon, the missiles came from an area controlled by Houthi forces, who are fighting against the government of Yemen and who the U.S. government says are backed by the Iranian government, which is supplying weapons to the rebel group.

But it was unclear who ordered October's missile launches, as NPR's Philip Ewing reported. Houthi leaders denied the attacks, and Tehran has denied U.S. accusations that Iran is supporting Houthi forces. Nonetheless, the U.S. carried out airstrikes against what the Pentagon said were radar installations in Houthi-controlled areas.

In December, Congress extended U.S. sanctions against Iran originally imposed in 1996 until 2026. </s> Columbia: President Donald Trump on Thursday said Iran was now formally "on notice" after a recent missile test, while also claiming the Islamic Republic was on the brink of collapse when it signed an international nuclear deal.

"Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile.

Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!" Trump tweeted, echoing similar comments by National Security Advisor Michael Flynn the day before.

But there has been scant detail from the White House as to what the warning actually means in practical terms. It remains to be seen if the White House will push for sanctions this time around.

Flynn insisted that Sunday's missile test was "in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231," which calls on Iran not to test missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapon.

Iran's ballistic missile program has been a bone of contention with the West since the nuclear deal took effect in January last year.

 A previous, while controversial, test was not found to be in breach of the UN guidelines.

A senior Trump administration official said that it was clear the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear payload, while a second official said it was not considered a breach of the nuclear deal.

Both Trump and Flynn have been harsh critics of Tehran and vocal opponents of the nuclear deal with world powers that saw Iran curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

"Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a life-line in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion," Trump said in a second pre-dawn tweet.

He was referring to an estimate of the value of sanctions relief that Iran obtained from the White House -- then under president Barack Obama -- in exchange for signing the deal. </s> A top aide to Iran's supreme leader blamed the "inexperienced" Trump administration for apparent U.S. threats and vowed his country would continue testing ballistic missiles.

Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on foreign affairs, said that Iran had not breached a nuclear deal reached with six major powers in 2015 or a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the accord. The White House has accused Tehran of acting "in defiance" of a separate U.N. Security Council resolution on ballistic missiles, as opposed to the nuclear agreement.

"This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran," Velayati said. "Iran is the strongest power in the region and has a lot of political, economic and military power ... America should be careful about making empty threats to Iran."

He added: "Iran will continue to test its capabilities in ballistic missiles and Iran will not ask any country for permission in defending itself."

Velayati did not identify any U.S. official specifically.

On Wednesday, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said the White House was putting Tehran "on notice," an apparent threat of retaliation for Sunday's ballistic missile test.

Flynn, a retired Army general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, delivered his remarks in a surprise appearance at the daily White House press briefing. He cited other examples of what he called Iran's "destabilizing behavior across the Middle East," including reported attacks on U.S. allies by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.

National security officials told reporters later Wednesday that the administration was considering a range of options, including economic sanctions and supporting forces that counter Iranian action in the region.

Iran used to be prohibited from test-firing ballistic missiles under previous U.N. resolutions. However, these were superseded by a new resolution passed alongside the nuclear deal.

This only "called upon" Iran not to test-fire missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Critics of the deal say this wording is effectively a loophole meaning the missile-testing restrictions are not obligatory.

The government in Tehran says that because it doesn't have a nuclear-weapons program, its missile tests are not violations of this clause.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif didn't confirm or deny the launch during a press conference Tuesday but said, "The missiles aren't part of the nuclear accords," Reuters reported. "Iran will never use missiles produced in Iran to attack any other country."

The United States deemed the launch to be a failure, after the missile flew more than 500 miles before crashing, according to two officials who spoke to NBC News on Monday on condition of anonymity.

However, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Thursday that the missile test was "successful" but also insisted it "was not a violation of a nuclear deal with world powers or any U.N. resolution."
The White House tells U.S. Congress that Iran is complying with its nuclear deal, and promises to impose new sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program.