Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images Iran takes step back from nuclear deal after US airstrike But Tehran could change course and will still cooperate with UN agency, foreign minister says.

Iran said Sunday that it is taking another step away from commitments made under its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter that Tehran would no longer observe any restriction on the number of centrifuges it could operate.

He described the move as a fifth and final "remedial" step by Iran, which has justified previous moves away from the deal on the basis that U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the pact in 2018 and European countries have failed to protect Iranian economic interests.

However, Zarif said that all the steps Iran has taken were reversible if parties to the deal met their obligations. He also said that Iran's "full cooperation" with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency would continue.

Tehran's move came after a U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed a senior Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, as well as U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats over the weekend to bomb Iran if it sought revenge for Soleimani's death.

The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was agreed in 2015 between Iran and China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and the EU. Trump’s withdrawal from the pact in 2018 and reimposition of sanctions is widely seen as the starting point in a series of events that led to an escalation of tensions and Iran’s gradual rolling back of its commitments.

The Trump administration argued that the nuclear deal had given Tehran financial power and political breathing space to step up a campaign of destabilization across the Middle East.

The European signatories of the deal had fought to save the pact, which they view as necessary to curb Iran’s nuclear program and help stabilize the wider Middle East.

In a joint statement released late Sunday, the leaders of Germany, France and the U.K. said there was an "urgent" need for de-escalation and called on Iran to comply with the nuclear deal.

"We specifically call on Iran to refrain from further violent action or proliferation, and urge Iran to reverse all measures inconsistent with the JCPOA," the statement said.

Before Tehran’s announcement about stepping back from the deal, the EU’s diplomatic service issued a statement calling the nuclear agreement “a corner stone of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture,” and stressed the importance of maintaining its “full implementation by all parties.”