Daily Mail: Leaked cables show UK ambassador saying Trump abandoned Iran deal in act of ‘diplomatic vandalism’

According to the Daily Mail Saturday, the former ambassador said Trump seemed to be discarding the Iran nuclear deal for “personality reasons,” as the deal had been agreed to by former President Barack Obama. The paper also reported that Darroch hinted at discord brewing between Trump’s closest aides and said the White House had failed to produce a “day-after” plan on how to handle the aftermath of withdrawing from the deal.

CNN has not seen the leaked cables and cannot confirm their contents.

The White House told CNN it has no comment on the story.

Trump said Monday that the White House would no longer deal with Darroch, and the UK Foreign Office announced Darroch’s resignation Wednesday. The former ambassador made his decision to step down after seeing that Boris Johnson, the current frontrunner to replace Theresa May as British Prime Minister, had refused to support him during Tuesday night’s leadership debate, a British government official confirmed to CNN.

A UK Foreign Office spokesman told CNN on Saturday that whoever leaked the cables “should face the consequences of their actions.”

“It’s not news that the US and UK differ in how to ensure Iran is never able to acquire a nuclear weapon; but this does underline that we do not shy away from talking about our differences and working together,” the spokesman said. “That is true of the current tensions in the Gulf where we, the UK, are in close contact with our American and European allies to de-escalate the situation.”

Police in the UK have opened a criminal investigation into the leaked diplomatic cables that led to Darroch’s departure. Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said Friday that there is a “clear public interest in bringing the person or people responsible to justice.”

At the time the US withdrew from the deal, senior Trump administration officials — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Iran was adhering to its commitments under the deal.

Earlier this week, Trump tweeted that Iran “has long been secretly ‘enriching’,” a claim that has been contradicted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose monitors were tasked with ensuring that Iran was complying with the terms of the 2015 deal, as well as by independent experts and by Trump’s own top intelligence officials.

CNN’s Larry Register, Jamie Crawford, Michelle Kosinski, Schams Elwazer, Stephen Collinson, Bianca Britton, Max Foster, Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Nina dos Santos contributed to this report.