Russia urges Donald Trump to honour 2015 Iran nuclear deal

A top Russian diplomat has said President-elect Donald Trump should adjust his "pre-election promises" to rip up the Iran nuclear deal and keep it in place.

"The practice has always in the United States of adjusting pre-election promises and intentions along the way of practical implementation of what is planned," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Russia's largest news wire service TASS Thursday, 1 December.

His comments come a day after current CIA director John Brennan warned Trump during a BBC interview that it would be "disastrous" and "the height of folly" to scrap the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Rybakov said that he considers the deal "very balanced" and contains "considerable positive impetus for the situation in the Middle East and for international relations in general."

Russia, he said, "meticulously register everything that is being said on this matter" and is watching "the position of [the] future US Administration on this document."

Rybakov believes the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will, in the end, be recognized by everyone as [sic] Washington, including those who have so far been countering the achievement of the deal with Iran and implementation of the joint plan for political motives."

The deal was struck by Secretary of State John Kerry, China, Britain, France, Germany and Russia in 2015. Under its terms Iran agreed to stop its nuclear weapons-grade uranium enrichment programme and destroy uranium stockpiles almost entirely. This would essentially put an end to the country's quest to build a nuclear weapon. The deal is, in turn, for the US, EU, and United Nations to lift economic sanctions on the country.

A number of times during his presidential campaign Trump said that if he became president it would be his "number one priority" to dismantle the deal, which he described as "disastrous". Yet even some within Israel, which was the loudest critic of the deal, are saying it would be destabilizing to Israeli and regional security to withdraw from it.

"JCPOA's constructive resource is far from exhausted," Rybakov insisted. "On the contrary, we are at the very start of its implementation."