Washington, AFP-11 November 2016 – The Iran nuclear deal would fall apart if a US administration walked away from it, as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to do, the State Department said Thursday.

Trump said several times during his campaign that moving away from it will be a priority once he takes power in January.

“Any party – and I’m speaking very hypothetically here, because I don’t want in any way to attempt to hypothesize about what the incoming administration’s going to do – I’m just talking purely about an agreement that any party can walk away from,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

“And that will have profound consequences on the integrity of the agreement.” Toner said that the Iran deal was not a legally binding treaty, but that the current US administration believes it is in Washington’s interest to continue it.

During the election campaign, Trump described the deal as “disastrous” and said it would be his “number one priority” to dismantle it.