While negotiations continue in Lausanne, Congress and Tehran’s parliament throw a wrench in the gears

BY AFP AND TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF March 15, 2015, 6:56 pm| The Times of Israel|
 

U S Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Sunday that American was “on the cusp of entering into a very bad deal” with Iran. On CNN’s

“State of the Union,” McConnell called Iran “one of the worst regimes in the world” and said that the current deal “would allow them to continue to

have their nuclear infrastructure.” “We’re alarmed about it,” he added. “We will either be voting on a bill that would require the deal to come to Congress.

The president said he would veto that. Or if there is no deal, we’ll be voting on a bill that says the sanctions need to be ratcheted up,” he said. Last Tuesday

McConnell said debate on bipartisan legislation requiring US President Barack Obama to submit any nuclear deal with Iran to Congress for its approval should begin next week.

That debate could also open the door for consideration of new economic sanctions on the regime in Tehran, a move strongly opposed by the Obama administration amid ongoing international negotiations with Iran. While the US Congress continues its debate on increased sanctions, their counterparts in the Iranian Parliament are calling for an end to sanctions altogether against the Islamic Republic. In a statement, Iranian MPs stressed the need for the removal

of all sanctions, restoration of the nuclear rights of the Iranian nation and objective assurances binding the US compliance with the agreement, the Fars News Agency reported. The US bill requiring congressional review of any nuclear agreement “will be on the floor of the Senate for debate next week,” McConnell told reporters last week.

It would give Congress 60 days to hold hearings and classified briefings on the deal, and either approve or reject it. The bill was introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker and the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Robert Menendez. The White House has already threatened to veto the legislation because the administration wants flexibility to hammer out an accord with Iran and other international negotiators without meddling from Congress.

Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough confirmed that any nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers would be subject to a vote by the UN Security Council. “Just as it is true that only Congress can terminate US statutory sanctions on Iran, only the Security Council can terminate the Security Council’s sanctions on Iran,” McDonough said in a letter on Saturday to Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Because the principal negotiators of an arrangement with Iran are the five permanent members of the Security Council, we anticipate that the Security Council would pass a resolution to register its support for any deal and increase its international legitimacy,” he said. Legislation that would impose sanctions in the event no final deal is reached by the end of July, a deadline imposed by negotiators, passed the foreign relations committee on January 29.

In Iran, Chairman of the Parliament’s Nuclear Committee Ebrahim Karkhaneyee said Sunday, “A sum of 226 lawmakers have already put their signatures down the statement which lays emphasis on the inalienable rights of the Iranian nation and calls for the removal of all sanctions.” Several Democrats including Menendez told Obama in late January that they would not vote on Iran sanctions until after March 24.

With Congress in recess in the final week of March, that would give the administration room to reach a political deal with Iran by their initial March 31 deadline. “Certainly, if no agreement is reached, we’ll need to ratchet up the sanctions,” McConnell said last Tuesday.