WASHINGTON, Nov 14: Senior US lawmakers expressed sharp frustration with the Obama administration’s call to delay new sanctions against Iran, underscoring the difficult sales job the Democratic president has as he pursues a rapprochement with Tehran.
Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and other top officials visited Capitol Hill to warn senators that implementing the new measures could scuttle delicate talks between Iran and world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“The risk is that if Congress were to unilaterally move to raise sanctions it could break faith in those negotiations and actually stop them and break them apart,” Kerry told reporters before the closed-door briefing.
But some key lawmakers said after the meeting that they had not been convinced.
“It was a very unsatisfying briefing,” said Senator Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
However, Corker, also a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the sanctions measures, said he had not yet made up his mind about whether they should go ahead now.
Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, the banking committee’s chairman, said he was still undecided about whether to go ahead.
Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat who is chairman of the foreign relations committee and a member of the banking committee, still wants the new sanctions, a spokesman said after the briefing.
President Barack Obama’s administration wants a “temporary pause” on new sanctions on Iran to allow diplomats from the United States and five other world powers to negotiate with Tehran and test whether it might be possible to resolve a decade-long standoff over its nuclear program.
“We have the unity of the P5+1, Germany, Great Britain, France … And Russia, China and the United States are all agreed on this proposal that’s on the table,” Kerry said.
“If all of a sudden sanctions were to be increased, there are members of that coalition who have put it in place who would think that we are dealing in bad faith, and they would bolt. And then the sanctions would fall apart,” he said.
But Obama’s diplomacy with Iran has been greeted with skepticism from many quarters, including U.S. Allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as among Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, adding a new element to the White House’s diplomatic calculations.
Negotiators failed to reach an agreement during weekend talks in Geneva. A new round of talks starts on Nov. 20.
Western nations fear that Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, while Tehran says it is purely peaceful. But Iran’s refusal to halt sensitive nuclear work has drawn tough sanctions targeting the oil exports that are its lifeblood.
(AGENCIES)
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