Donald Trump backed away from a campaign promise to scrap a major nuclear security deal with Iran Tuesday, with officials announcing the agreement and related sanctions relief will stay in place for now.

Under the terms of the two-year-old agreement, Tehran scaled back production of nuke-making material in return for massive sanctions relief.

The Trump administration faced a new congressional deadline Monday to report whether Iran has curbed its nuclear weapons program in line with the accord.

"The conditions," according to one official who the White House would not name publicly, "have been met, based on information available to the United States." 

But the official suggested new, non-nuclear sanctions are in the pipeline: "we do expect that we will be implementing new sanctions that pertain to Iran's ballistic missile program and fast boat program."

source: AFP