Rouhani says Iran in talks with world powers, not U.S. Congress

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, April 15, that Tehran was negotiating a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers, not the U.S. Congress, and called a Senate committee’s vote to give Congress the power to review any potential deal a domestic U.S. matter, the Washongton Post reports.

The Iranian leader, speaking in a televised speech in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, also repeated earlier statements that his country will not accept any comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers unless all sanctions imposed against it are lifted.

“We are in talks with the major powers and not with the Congress,” Rouhani said, quoted by Iranian state television. Rouhani said the U.S. Congress’ power to review a nuclear deal with Iran was a domestic U.S. matter.

He said Iran wanted to end its isolation from the world through “constructive interaction with the world and not confrontation.”

Rouhani’s comments came one day after a Senate committee voted unanimously to give Congress the power to review a potential Iran nuclear deal after a June 30 negotiating deadline, in a compromise with the White House that allows President Obama to avoid possible legislative disapproval of the pact before it can be completed.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Germany Wednesday morning he was confident Obama would be able to get Congress to approve a nuclear deal.

“Looming large is the challenge of finishing the negotiation with Iran over the course of the next two and a half months,” Kerry said after arriving in Germany for a Group of Seven foreign ministers’ meeting in the northern city of Luebeck, news agencies reported.

“Yesterday there was a compromise reached in Washington regarding congressional input. We are confident about our ability for the president to negotiate an agreement and to do so with the ability to make the world safer,” he said.

The bipartisan bill is likely to move quickly to the full Senate after the Foreign Relations Committee voted 19 to 0 to approve the measure. It would give Congress at least 30 days to consider an agreement after it was signed, before Obama could waive or suspend any congressionally mandated sanctions against Iran.

During that period, lawmakers could vote their disapproval of the agreement. Any such resolution would have to clear a relatively high bar to become law, requiring 60 votes to pass and 67, or two-thirds of the Senate, to override a presidential veto.

The compromise avoided a potentially destructive showdown between the White House and Congress, as well as a possible free-for-all of congressional action that Obama has said could derail the negotiations while they are underway.