Obama administration warns Republicans could ‘potentially prevent’ deal that has been years in the making and damage relations with allies across the world
The White House has warned that Republicans in Congress could “potentially prevent” a groundbreaking deal to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, scuppering an agreement that has been years in the making and damaging relations with allies across the world.
Hours before talks were due to resume in Switzerland on Sunday, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough sent a letter to a senior Republican critic, urging him to shelve legislation that would clip the administration’s wings.
Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, is bringing a bill that would require Congress to vote on any deal with Iran and remove the waiver authority that allows President Barack Obama to suspend sanctions imposed by the legislature.
“The legislation would potentially prevent any deal from succeeding by suggesting that Congress must vote to ‘approve’ any deal, and by removing any existing sanctions waver authorities that have already been granted to the president,” McDonough said.
“We believe the legislation would likely have a profoundly negative impact on the ongoing negotiations – emboldening Iranian hardliners.”
Calling on Corker to hold off the bill until a deal is reached, McDonough also warned that if the US was blamed for negotiations falling apart, Washington would be unable to muster the international support needed to ratchet-up sanctions on Tehran.
“Put simply, it would potentially make it impossible to secure international cooperation for additional sanctions, while putting at risk the existing multilateral sanctions regime,” he said.
In Lausanne on Sunday, American and Iranian officials met at the beginning of the last scheduled week of talks before a framework agreement is due to be completed. The discussions involved senior diplomats and nuclear officials and were due to bring together Kerry with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Sunday evening.
Zarif was then due to fly to Brussels for talks with the foreign ministers from France, Germany and the UK on Monday evening, after a meeting with the European foreign policy chief, Frederica Mogherini. Throughout the week, senior diplomats will continue their work in Lausanne.
When Iran began negotiating a comprehensive agreement with the US and five other world powers, skeptics doubted whether the country’s new president, Hasan Rouhani, could persuade hardliners in his country to support any deal.
But two weeks away from the end-of-March deadline, it is unyielding conservatives in Washington, bolstered by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who are working hardest to torpedo the deal. They object to any agreement that would allow Tehran even token civil nuclear capability, even when limited and subject to rigorous inspections.
In an unprecedented move, 47 Republican senators signed an open letter to Iranian leaders suggesting that any deal reached by Obama would ultimately need congressional approval and could swiftly be overturned by any successor.
The letter penned, by a conservative senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, may have involved a misreading of international and constitutional law, but it was an effective stunt, undermining the Obama administration and fuelling doubts in Tehran about whether Washington can be trusted.
The move has been criticised by Democrats and even some Republicans as an amateurish attempt to pull the rug from beneath a president at the height of delicate negotiations.
Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, one of the letter’s signatories, defended the move on Sunday, and indicated Corker’s legislation would proceed.
“Apparently the administration is on the cusp of entering into a very bad deal with one of the worst regimes in the world that would allow them to continue to have their nuclear infrastructure,” he told CNN. “We’re alarmed about it. A number of Democrats are alarmed about it. We will be acting.”
Cotton, who has been in the Senate less than three months, told CBS he had “no regrets” and suggested his letter would strengthen the administration’s ability to “drive a hard bargain”.
“What we did was to send a clear message to a dictatorial regime,” he said. “We didn’t coddle or conciliate with the dictators in Iran.”
On the eve of his visit to Lausanne, Kerry said he would not take responsibility for Cotton’s intervention, which he said was an “unprecedented” attempt to interfere in an executive’s foreign negotiations.
“I’m not going to apologise for the unconstitutional, un-thought-out action by somebody who’s been in the United States Senate for 60-something days,” he said. “That’s just inappropriate.”
A framework agreement between the international powers and Iran is supposed to set out the key element of a deal in which Iran accepts limits of its nuclear activities for a number of years (expected to be at least 10) in return for sanctions relief. The negotiators would then have until the end of June to complete detailed annexes on how the deal would be implemented and verified.
With days to go until the deadline for a framework deal, there are still said to be gaps remaining on the central issues of Iran’s future uranium enrichment capacity and the question of which sanctions will be lifted and when. Diplomats from all sides have voiced readiness to stay in Lausanne through the Persian New Year holiday, Nowruz, which begins next weekend, but western negotiators are reluctant to push the first deadline beyond the end of the month.
“We believe very much that there’s not anything that’s going to change in April or May or June that suggests that at that time a decision you can’t make now will be made then,” Kerry told CBS News before arriving in Lausanne.
“If it’s peaceful, let’s get it done. And my hope is that in the next days that will be possible.”
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Iran will take no lessons from US, says supreme leader after senators’ letter
Iran’s supreme leader has reacted to an open letter from Republican senators in the US by saying that Tehran will take no lessons from Washington.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei added that he was concerned about the fate of nuclear talks because the other side was “deceitful and back-stabbing”.
Last week, 47 senators wrote an unprecedented letter to “the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, in which they said a nuclear agreement could be reversed with “the stroke of a pen” after Barack Obama leaves office. The letterhas caused controversy in the US.
“The letter by American senators indicates the collapse of political ethics in the United States,” Khamenei said on Thursday during a meeting with members of Iran’s top clerical body, which includes President Hassan Rouhani.
“Governments are bound to their commitments by international laws and would not violate their obligations with a change of government,” he said. “They [the Republican senators] said they want to teach us their own laws but we don’t need their lessons, our officials know how to make agreements binding if there’s a deal.”
Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, made clear that Iran’s nuclear negotiators, led by its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif , have his full support. His backing will shield Iranian diplomats from attacks by hardliners at home as they approach a deadline for a framework deal in the coming weeks.
“The negotiating team that President [Rouhani] has chosen for the talks are good, trustworthy and act based on the interests of the country,” Khamenei said. “But I’m worried because the other side is cunning, deceitful and back-stabbing.
“Each time we approach the deadline for talks, the other side, especially Americans, adopt a harsher and more aggressive tone. This is one of their tricks and a deception.”
Khamenei was speaking to members of Iran’s experts council, which is responsible for appointing and dismissing the supreme leader. But the 75-year-old ayatollah has become so powerful that the council’s supervisory role has diminished to a symbolic one despite members still being elected in public votes. The council appointed the hardline cleric Mohammad Yazdi as its chairman on Wednesday.
In his speech, Khamenei also condemned the Israeli prime minister B in yamin Netanyahu ’s recent speech to the US Congress which has polarised opinions both in the US and Israel.
“A Zionist clown went there and made a speech, American officials tried to distance themselves from it by making some remarks but at the same time they accused Iran of terrorism. This claim is ridiculous and despicable.”
Khamenei accused the US and its allies of creating Daesh (the Arabic for Islamic State) and similar terrorist groups in the Middle East. “America supports the bogus Zionist regime which is a terrorising state and that’s the ugliest form of supporting terrorism,” he said.
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Republican Iran letter not the action of ‘reasonable people’, says Clinton
