Iran Lawmakers Set American Flag on Fire, Chant 'Death to America'

Iranian lawmakers shouted "death to America" and set fire to a paper U.S. flag in parliament after President Donald Trump announced the United States would pull out of the nuclear deal.

The protest came as Iranian officials, including parliament speaker Ali Larijani and President Hassan Rouhani, said Wednesday that they hoped European leaders will work with them to preserve the deal between Tehran and world powers, even without the U.S. However, officials stressed that the nation could now decide to resume its nuclear program.

"If necessary, we can begin our industrial enrichment without any limitations," the Iranian leader said, according to TIME magazine. "Until implementation of this decision, we will wait for some weeks and will talk with our friends and allies and other signatories of the nuclear deal, who signed it and who will remain loyal to it. Everything depends on our national interests."

Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader, who has the final say on all state matters, struck a more defiant tone. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directly challenged Trump, saying "you cannot do a damn thing" after Trump announced he was renewing sanctions on Iran, USA TODAY reports.

The lawmakers, including a Shiite cleric, held the flaming flag alight as their fellow officials joined their chants. They also burned a piece of paper representing the nuclear deal and stomped on the papers' ashes.

The 2015 agreement imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in return for the lifting of most sanctions from the U.S. and international countries. However, the deal came with time limits and did not address Iran's ballistic missile program or its regional policies in Syria and elsewhere. Trump has repeatedly pointed to those omissions in referring to the accord as the "worst deal ever."

Proponents of the deal have said those time limits were meant to encourage more discussion with Iran in the future that could eventually address other concerns.

Late Tuesday night, before officials burned the American flag, President Rouhani said he'd be sending Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to the countries still in the deal — China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. Iran hopes the European Union will pass laws to protect European firms from any potential U.S. sanctions. EU officials have suggested they'll do what they can to salvage the 2015 agreement.

Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, the EU's representative to China, said Wednesday during a press briefing in Beijing that the EU strongly believes "that this is an agreement which belongs to the international community. This is not an agreement that will fall apart if you just walk away."

France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French radio that the deal "wasn't dead yet" and that European countries would hold talks over how to keep it alive.

Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, was quoted Wednesday by Iran's semi-official Fars news agency as saying: "We welcome Trump's decision on pulling out of the deal. This is not a new event and has no effective role in any field." Jafari said that "it was clear that the Americans are not trustworthy."