WORLD powers urged the United States yesterday not to abandon the Iran nuclear deal ahead of a speech by President Donald Trump.

French foreign affairs spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne called the agreement a “solid, robust and verifiable tool guaranteeing that Iran will not get nuclear weapons.”

In Germany, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: “We consider this deal to be an important instrument to prevent Iran's nuclear armament.”

Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov predicted that a US pullout would “hurt the atmosphere of predictability, security, stability and non-proliferation in the entire world.”

And Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani warned that such action would be “primarily an insult to the UN” and could destabilise the international situation.

“We will continue to adhere to our obligations … for as long as other parties observe the agreement,” he said.

Iran’s communist Tudeh Party stressed that Mr Trump and his government had failed to cite any Iranian violation of the agreement. 

International secretary Navid Shomali said: “Trump’s position has absolutely nothing to do with whether Iran is in compliance with the accord.” 

It is “predicated on the US administration’s strategic designs for the containment of Iran and an unopposed, uninterrupted sphere of control encompassing the whole Middle East,” Mr Shomali argued.

Mr Trump was due to address the 2015 agreement in a speech last night. A decision whether or not to continue the deal is due on Sunday.

Anonymouse White House officials claimed that Mr Trump would not reimpose a ban on Iranian oil exports — a sanction that would also hurt the US — but would impose sanctions against the Iranian military.

On Thursday, CIA director Mike Pompeo compared Iran to its arch-enemy Isis.

In a speech at the University of Texas, he called the Iranian Revolutionary Guard “the vanguard of a pernicious empire that is expanding its power and influence across the Middle East” and accused Iran of being “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.”