Pence warns Iran against testing Trump’s resolve

US Vice President Mike Pence in an interview airing Sunday warns Iran “not to test the resolve” of the Donald Trump administration, days after Washington slapped new sanctions on Tehran following a ballistic missile test launch.

Relations between the two sides have deteriorated sharply since Trump took office last month promising a tough line on what he sees as Iranian belligerence toward US interests.

“Iran would do well to look at the calendar and realize there’s a new president in the Oval Office. And Iran would do well not to test the resolve of this new president,” Pence tells ABC News in an interview taped Saturday.

The tough talk comes after Trump’s Pentagon chief James Mattis declared last week that Iran was “the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.”

The charged rhetoric raises questions over whether the United States will abandon commitments it made under a landmark deal — negotiated with several world powers and approved by president Barack Obama in 2015 — that obliged Iran to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for relief from US and international sanctions.

“The Iranians got a deal from the international community that again, the president and I and our administration think was a terrible deal,” Pence says. “Well, we’re evaluating that as we speak,” he says.

— AFP