Iran scraps nuclear deal after US kills top general

Iran effectively abandoned the nuclear deal between itself and world powers Sunday as the fallout from the U.S. killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani Friday intensified. 

Iran said it would no longer abide by any and all "operational restrictions" on its enrichment of uranium, a key part of the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord that prevented Iran from acquiring sufficient material to build a nuclear bomb. 

A government statement said it would be Iran's last move away from the deal following the Trump administration's exit from the agreement in May 2018.

However, Iran said it was open to negotiation and would willingly return to full compliance with the deal if the U.S. lifts economic sanctions imposed against it. 

There was no immediate reaction from the White House. 

Hostilities between Tehran and Washington have steadily increased since Trump's withdrawal from the deal, although the Trump administration blames Iran for a series of provocations in the region, rather than the denuded deal, for heightened tensions.

"We’re trying to correct for what was the Obama administration’s appeasement of Iran," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on the ABC News' "This Week."

Former President Barack Obama negotiated the landmark accord. 

"The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has in a statement announced its fifth and final step in reducing Iran’s commitments under the JCPOA," an Iranian state TV broadcaster said late Sunday, using an acronym for the deal.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran no longer faces any limitations in operations."

President Hassan Rouhani’s administration said the country will not observe limitations on its enrichment, the amount of stockpiled enriched uranium as well as research and development in its nuclear activities. However, it stopped short of saying it would pursue a nuclear bomb, in keeping with Iran's longtime insistence that its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes only. The Trump administration disputes that claim. 

The announcement came after hundreds of thousands of people Sunday flooded the streets of the Middle East country to mourn the death of Soleimani, Iran's former top military commander and the mastermind of its vast network of pro-Iranian militias stretching from Iraq to Yemen. Soleimani, considered a terrorist by Washington, was killed in a drone strike on Friday as he departed Baghdad airport. 

Iraq's parliament on Sunday voted to expel U.S. military forces from the country over the strike on Soleimani. The vote is non-binding but reflected the depth of anger at the Trump administration over the attack. Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi described the general's killing as a "political assassination" and urged U.S. troops to leave. 

Iran's leaders have vowed a harsh retaliation over Soleimani's killing, with several officials from its diplomatic corps and a close adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei saying military force was likely. Over the last 24 hours rockets launched by unspecified actors have landed near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

While it is not unusual for the American diplomatic compound there to come under attack by rockets and mortars fired by pro-Iran militants, the assaults have taken on added significance given suggestions from Iranian officials that U.S. troops and military personnel could be targeted by Iran in reprisals for Soleimani's killing.