Iranian President Hasan Rouhani arrives at New York’s JFK airport on Sunday, September 17, 2017. (Photo: Iranian Presidency)

(CNSNews.com) – Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, on U.S. soil, on Monday repeated an earlier warning that Iran’s nuclear program could return within a short time to the condition it was in before the nuclear deal was implemented, should President Trump withdraw from the agreement.

In an interview with CNN before attending the high-level meetings of the U.N. General Assembly this week, Rouhani said the United States would pay a “high cost” and receive nothing in return if it exits the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)

“It will yield no results for the United States but at the same time it will generally decrease and cut away and chip away at international trust placed in the Unites States of America,” a CNN translator quoted him as telling interviewer Christiane Amanpour.

If the U.S. pulls out of the deal, he said, Iran would have “various options at our disposal.”

“If such a thing were to happen, quite swiftly the world will see Iran’s steps and reactions; this action will take place in the matter of a few days,” the translator quoted him as saying.

The Iranian presidency quoted him a little differently: “Any riposte from Iran would come quite swiftly and probably within a week,” while Iran’s state news agency IRNA translated the words as follows: “If we wish, we will have only a few days to return to the pre-JCPOA nuclear conditions.”

That interpretation of his comment echoed remarks to the Iranian parliament after his second-term inauguration last month, when Rouhani warned that if the U.S. returned to a policy of “threats and sanctions” against Iran, then Iran would “definitely return to a situation much more advanced than the start of the [JCPOA] negotiations, not within months and weeks, but in a matter of hours and days.”

Trump is obliged by U.S. law to certify by mid-October whether Iran is meeting its commitments under the JCPOA. Last week he restated his view that the accord was “one of the worst deals” he had ever seen, and told reporters they would “see” what he would do when the time came to report to Congress on the matter.

After years of negotiations the JCPOA was concluded between Iran and the P5+1 group – the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.

The deal, which the Obama administration touted as one of its foremost major foreign policy accomplishments, placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in return for substantial sanctions relief.

‘One of the most evil devils’

On Sunday, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that U.S. that “any wrong move” regarding the JCPOA would be met by a strong Iranian reaction.

“The Americans should know that the Iranian nation will stand behind its noble and strong stances and that there is no backing down in the Islamic Republic when it comes to key issues related to national interests,” he told a police graduation ceremony.

Khamenei accused the U.S. of “mischief and malevolence” concerning the nuclear deal, saying its behavior underscored the veracity of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s description of the U.S. as “the great satan.”

“The U.S. regime is one of the most evil devils, indeed,” he added.

In the CNN interview, Rouhani said the approach being taken by Trump was a return to pre-Obama policies.

“The path undertaken today by this U.S. administration is a return to the past, to a distant past that goes all the way back to President Bush number one, as well as President Bush the son, number two,” he said.

“These paths have already been traveled upon, they have been unsuccessful and soon Mr. Trump will see that this was the wrong path that he had chosen.”

Asked about the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, Rouhani said he did not see a “military solution” working.

“Only diplomacy is the tool that will resolve this problem permanently.”

Rouhani also warned that a U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA could have implications for efforts to deal with Pyongyang.

“I think what the Iranian experience shows is a good experience that can be replicated elsewhere, and executed elsewhere," he said.

“But keep in mind please that if the United States wishes to withdraw from the JCPOA, why would the North Koreans waste their time in order to sit around the table of dialogue with the United States?” Rouhani asked.

“Because they would think perhaps after years of talks and a potential agreement the next U.S. administration could step over or pull out of the agreement achieved.”

Iran and North Korea have collaborated in the nuclear and missile fields for years.