Al-Monitor | Laura Rozen: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said today that Iran was still not certain whether the Donald Trump administration wants to scrap the Iran nuclear deal. But he said critics of the deal � reached in 2015 after years of intensive negotiations � are wrong to think that a better agreement is available.

�We still do not know what they want to do,� Zarif said today. �They have been talking about scrapping the deal. � But they seem to have come to the realization that scrapping the deal is not something that would be globally welcome. � [So] they now try to make it impossible for Iran to get the benefits from the deal.�

Zarif spoke to a small group of American journalists at the Central Park residence of Iran�s ambassador to the United Nations, a day after the Trump administration grudgingly certified that Iran was complying with the nuclear deal while slapping sanctions on 18 Iranian entities for non-nuclear concerns. Unlike its predecessor, Trump aides insisted, the new administration refuses to be held hostage by the nuclear accord in devising a more aggressive posture to counter Iranian actions in the region.

Read more here