Days after lodging a complaint with the joint commission that oversees the violations of the Iranian nuclear agreement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that Iran could abandon its nuclear agreement with the world powers “within hours” if the United States imposes any more new sanctions.

“If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time – not a week or a month but within hours – to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations,” Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television, according to Reuters.

The Iranian Parliament had lodged a complaint with the commission after the Trump administration had imposed a new sanction on Iran’s ballistic missile programme inherently designed to carry a nuclear payload, stating that new sanctions were in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Responding to Rouhani US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said, “US sanctions were unrelated to the Iran nuclear deal and that Iran must be held responsible for missile launches, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of UN Security Council resolutions.” Haley added, “Iran cannot be allowed to use the nuclear deal to hold the world hostage.”

Iran has so far denied all charges and has stated that its missile development programme does not breach the resolution.