British diplomat says Trump scraps Iran nuclear deal to annoy Obama: report

U.S. President Donald Trump scrapped the Iran nuclear deal to spite his predecessor Barack Obama, British media on Sunday quoted a leaked memo as saying.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama. [File Photo: China Plus]

The memo, written by Britain's former ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch, said the decision to abandon the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a "diplomatic vandalism," according to the Mail newspaper.

"The administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons -- it was Obama's deal," Darroch wrote in a diplomatic telegram in May 2018.

The memo was written shortly after then British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's trip to Washington to persuade the White House to stick with the nuclear deal, the newspaper said.

In the cable, Darroch indicated there were splits among Trump's advisers and said the White House lacked a "day-after" strategy on what to do after the withdrawal from the JCPOA.

"Moreover, they can't articulate any 'day-after' strategy; and contacts with State Department this morning suggest no sort of plan for reaching out to partners and allies, whether in Europe or the region," Darroch wrote.

The report came amid a growing diplomatic rift between the two allies.

Last week, the first batch of leaked memos published by British media showed that Darroch described the Trump administration as "inept" "dysfunctional" and "faction riven," prompting the ambassador's resignation from his role.

In an angry response on Twitter, Trump claimed Darroch was a "pompous fool," saying that the United States "will no longer deal with" him.

The British authorities have launched an investigation to find the person responsible for the leak. According to the Sunday Times, which cited anonymous official sources, a suspect had been identified and the case was related to a computer hack.