Boehner: Iran has ‘no intention’ of keeping its word on nuclear deal
Dominic Rushe in New York
@dominicru
The
top Republican’s comments came as negotiations in Lausanne approached
the 31 March deadline for the drafting of a framework for a deal,
under intense criticism from Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin
Netanyahu.
Speaking on CNN, Boehner said he had serious doubts about the talks.
“We’ve got a regime that’s never quite kept their word about anything,” he said. “I just don’t understand why we would sign an agreement with a group of people who have no intention of keeping their word.”
If there was no agreement, Boehner said he would move “very” quickly to impose new sanctions on Iran.
“The sanctions are going to come and they are going to come quickly,” he said.
Boehner deepened a rift with
President Barack Obama when he invited Netanyahu to address Congress
earlier this month without first informing the White House. The invite strained Obama’s already awkward relationship with the Israeli premier.
“I
think the animosity exhibited by this administration toward the prime
minister of Israel is reprehensible,” said Boehner. “And I think the
pressure they have put on him over the past four or five years frankly
pushed him to the point where he had to speak up.”
Boehner
said Netanyahu had clearly highlighted the threat he said Iran’s
nuclear programme represents, “not only to the Middle East but to the
rest of the world”.
Netanyahu denounced the talks once again on Sunday. “I am deeply troubled by the emerging agreement with Iran in the nuclear talks,” he said at the start of a cabinet meeting. “The agreement confirms all of our fears and even worse.”
Boehner
said: “The president doesn’t want to talk about [Iran]. Doesn’t want to
talk about the fact that he has no strategy to deal with it. When you
begin to see all these leaks that presumably came out of the White House
about what the Iranian deal was going to be, there is a lot of concern
in Congress on a bipartisan basis.”
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