U.S. President Donald Trump has responded to news that former secretary of state John Kerry met several times with Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif recently, discussing the 2015 nuclear deal.

In a tweet on Thursday, Trump called the meetings “illegal”, characterizing Iran as a “very hostile” regime.

This would mean that Kerry most probably did not coordinate his meetings with Trump administration officials.

Trump also accused Kerry that the former secretary of state told Zarif “to wait out the Trump administration!”

The meetings took place apparently when Trump was taking the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran.

Kerry said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Salem Radio in New York on Wednesday, September 12 that he met with Zarif several times in recent months but insisted that his intention was not to “coach” Iran on how to manage Trump’s rejections of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, as the landmark nuclear deal is labelled officially.

Meanwhile, a senior State Department official, Manisha Singh, who is Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, commented that if Kerry held such meetings that would be constitute an inappropriate action.