Iranian lawmakers burned a U.S. flag in the country's parliament and chanted "Death to America" in a public display of anger on Wednesday following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and five other world powers.
Members of the Iranian parliament also set fire to a piece of paper representing the deal.
Watching the events unfold, the speaker of Iran's parliament, Ali Larijani, quipped, "Be careful not to set the parliament on fire too."
Suggesting that Trump is not fit for his job, Larijani told the Iranian judiciary's website Mizan on Wednesday that "Trump does not have the mental capacity to deal with issues."
Announcing the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement on Tuesday, Trump declared: "It is clear to me this deal cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement– the Iran deal is defective at its core... I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal."
"America will not be held hostage by nuclear blackmail," he added.
"The fact is, this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made," Trump said. "A constructive deal could easily have been struck at the time. But it wasn't. At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction."
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani responded in a speech to the nation that Tehran would, for now, remain within the accord, and would negotiate with Russia and China– "the world's two super powers"– on a path forward. But he said that Iran would prepare to resume uranium enrichment as a contingency.
"Iran is a country that adheres to its commitments," Rouhani said, "and the U.S. is a country that has never adhered to its commitments."
Israeli government officials exalted the decision. "Israel thanks President Trump for his courageous decision," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in a speech following Trump's announcement, calling his decision historic.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
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