Iran says Trump's 'Saudi nuclear scandal' evidence of hypocrisy on JCPOA

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said a scandal that erupted this week in the US over contoversial nuclear dealings with Saudi Arabia was a sign of "hypocrisy" on Wednesday.

Zarif's comments follow revelations that senior US officials had pushed to share sensitive nuclear technology with the ultra-conservative kingdom, despite ethical and security concerns.

White House officials led by Trump's disgraced former-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn proposed that the US share nuclear technology and help to build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, a Congressional report said on Tuesday.

"Day by day it becomes clearer to the world what was always clear to us: neither human rights nor a nuclear program have been the real concern of the US," tweeted Zarif.

The US withdrew last year from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which eased sanctions in the country in return for it promising not to develop nuclear weapons. The US re-imposed sanctions following the withdrawal.

"The struggle between Iran and America is currently at a maximum. America has employed all its power against us," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, according to the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.

Trump has made Iran an increasingly bitter enemy during his presidency, but has refused to condemn Saudi Arabia for its involvement in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and its record in inflicting high numbers of civilian casualties in its intervention in Yemen.

Zarif said the US looking past the "dismembered journalist", and then making "illicit" nuclear deals with the country in whose consulate the murder took place, was a prime example of "US hypocrisy".