Iran president warns of ‘problems’ as Trump nuclear deal decision looms

Iran’s president on Tuesday warned that his country could face “some problems” ahead of US President Donald Trump’s decision on whether to pull out of the nuclear deal the Islamic Republic signed in 2015 with world powers.

Without directly naming Trump, Rouhani’s remarks at a petroleum conference in Tehran represented the first official Iranian comment on the US president’s overnight tweet that he’d make an announcement on the deal Tuesday.

“It is possible that we will face some problems for two or three months, but we will pass through this,” Rouhani said.

Rouhani also stressed that Iran wants to keep “working with the world and constructive engagement with the world.” That appeared to be a nod to Europe, which has struck a series of business deals with Tehran since the landmark nuclear deal. also called the JCPOA, went into effect.

The Iranian rial was trading at near-record lows against the dollar Tuesday morning as Iranians rushed to buy hard currency ahead of the announcement. The rial had already lost around a third of its value in six months before authorities in April took the drastic step of pegging the exchange rate to the dollar.

On Monday the Iranian president said the country would be willing not to abandon the deal even if the US pulls out, providing the European Union offers guarantees that Iran would keep benefiting from the accord.

Months of intensive talks between the US and European allies appeared deadlocked this week, with Berlin, London and Paris refusing to rewrite the agreement.

Trump tweeted on Monday that he would announce his decision at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, even as British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson shuttled around Washington trying to reach a last-gasp breakthrough.

A French official told the AFP news agency that President Emmanuel Macron left the United States last week after a similar diplomatic offensive “convinced that we would get a negative decision.”

Macron told the German daily Der Speigel Saturday that the worst-case scenario would be for Trump to withdraw fully from the deal. “That would mean opening Pandora’s box, it could mean war,” he said, adding, “I don’t believe that Donald Trump wants war.”

Trump’s decision to scrap sanctions relief would have global ramifications, straining Iran’s already crisis-racked economy, heightening tensions in the Middle East and laying bare the biggest transatlantic rift since the Iraq War.

Trump’s decision will be closely watched across the Middle East, where a number of powers are mulling their own nuclear programs, and in Pyongyang ahead of non-proliferation talks between Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has campaigned to discredit the deal. Last week he gave a PowerPoint presentation detailing a trove of documents the Mossad scooped from Tehran that outline Iran’s covert attempts at developing a nuclear arsenal. Trump responded by saying they proved he was “100 percent right” in his skepticism and antipathy to the deal.