Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed US counterpart Donald Trump as a "tradesman" not qualified to comment on global treaties as on April 25 he questioned how it is that the US and European allies feel they have the legitimacy to change the multilateral nuclear deal with his country.

Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron on April 24 said at the White House that they were discussing a "new deal" that would extend the terms of the 2015 accord.

Declaring that they had no "right" to renegotiate what is a seven-party agreement—signed by Iran, the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China in late 2015 after painstaking negotiations—Rouhani said of Trump: "You don't have any background in politics. You don't have any background in law. You don't have any background on international treaties."

Apart from the US, the major power signatories of the accord see it as the best way to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran is shielded from heavy sanctions in return for complying with its terms.

April 25 saw the EU, Germany, the UK and Russia all declaring that the present nuclear deal should be retained, with EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini saying: "On what can happen in the future, we'll see in the future. But there is one deal existing. It's working. It needs to be preserved."

China has also said it has no intention of seeking a renegotiation of the accord.

But also on April 25, US non-proliferation envoy Christopher Ford remarked that Washington is not seeking to reopen or renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal but hopes to stay in it to fix its flaws with a supplementary agreement. “We are not aiming to renegotiate the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the nuclear deal is formally named] or reopen it or change its terms,” Reuters reported Ford as telling reporters on the sidelines of a nuclear non-proliferation conference in Geneva.

Trump has threatened to pull the US out of the deal on May 12 if it is not “fixed” to his satisfaction.