US Congressmen to Iran: No sanctions relief without nuclear transparency. (AlMonitor).
House members sent the White House a clear message on Tuesday that Congress won't "budge an inch" on sanctions on Iran unless the country comes clean about the suspected military dimensions of its nuclear program.
In the first in a series of hearings on the ongoing nuclear talks, key members of the House Foreign Affairs panel reiterated their demands that any final agreement contain strong verification procedures.
But they also insisted that Iran allow access to suspected military sites before lawmakers are asked to approve a final deal — or even a six-month extension of the current interim agreement beyond the July 20 deadline, should it prove necessary.
"Before we would ever consider the possibility of extending this interim agreement for another six-month period, certainly we should expect that the Iranians would at least be willing to grant that access to the areas where for more than a decade we've had these concerns," said Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., the top Democrat on the Middle East and North Africa panel.
"At a bare minimum, Congress should be informed in a very detailed nature of whatever talks have taken place surrounding that issue before we should be asked to budge an inch on any sanctions."
Committee chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., embraced Deutch's concerns and invited him to a side conversation during the hearing, which was dedicated to verification of an Iran nuclear deal.
"This committee may soon be asked to judge a 'comprehensive agreement,'" Royce said in his opening statement. "Central to this would be evaluating the verification measures needed to ensure Iran can't cheat. What types of conditions should U.S. negotiators be demanding? What are the limits of verification?"
Royce went on to say that Iran's willingness to "come clean" on its past weapons program should be an "acid test" for negotiations.
"We must ask, what good is striking an agreement — and removing sanctions, our only leverage — if Iran keeps a capacity to secretly build nuclear bombs?"Hmmmm......What good are 'Sanctions That Benefit' the lifelines of Iran, like the waivers donated by Obama to BFF Erdogan who claims 'That he feels at Home in Iran'? Read the full story here.
If Iranian leaders continue to reject substantive transparency, it is because they have not yet abandoned their ambition to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has no interest in nuclear deal that compromises their nuclear infrastructure. Current talks stalled because Iran is demanding an additional 30,000 next generation centrifuges to make enriched uranium fuel even though West wants them to reduce their current 19,000 older centrifuges. Talks are only aimed to get relief from sanctions so they will have more oil money to fund their foreign efforts. • Iran is only interested in spreading its influence at the expense of domestic well-being of its own people. Money, arms, fighters for Assad and Syria and now offering $500 bounties to Afghan refugees to fight in place of Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Support for Hezbollah and Hamas terror groups. Manipulation in Iraq to attack dissidents at Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf and arrest without trial dissidents
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, if you look at the quote of Khamenei at the beginning of the negotiations you could see they never abandoned the idea and were just playing for time."
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The 'goal' is to win.