Iran FM slams Trump 'fake news' tweet, rules out nuclear renegotiation

Iran’s top diplomat scolded US President Donald Trump on Wednesday for a weekend tweet about a nonexistent Iranian missile launch and essentially ruled out renegotiating or launching follow-up talks to a landmark nuclear accord that Trump is threatening to dismantle.

“We need to check our facts before we make statements,” Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview. “It worries me that people play with facts and produce alternative facts.”

The minister reserved his sharpest scorn for Trump, who on Saturday blasted Iran in a Tweet that renewed criticism of its 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers including the US.

“Iran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel,” Trump tweeted. “They are also working with North Korea. Not much of an agreement we have!”

But it turns out there was no Iranian ballistic missile launch, according to Zarif and US officials.

It’s unclear where Trump got his information, but it apparently did not come from US intelligence agencies, which keep a continuous lookout for missile launches around the globe.

There are speculations that Trump got his information from the media.

As president, Trump could easily have checked with the CIA or other intelligence agencies to verify whether Iran had actually test-fired a missile.