Giving More Concessions To Iran (Eze 17)

  


Negotiators may let Iran slide on past nuclear work

BY: Charles Hoskinson June 12, 2015 | 12:52 pm

The Obama administration and its international negotiating partners appear willing to sign a nuclear deal with Iran that would not require Tehran to come clean on possible past work to develop a nuclear weapon, which experts have called crucial to ensuring any agreement can be verified.

The Associated Press, citing Western and U.S. officials, reported Thursday that members of the P5+1 group — the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China — were prepared to accept a deal that does not immediately answer questions about Iran’s past nuclear weapons program, in spite of the administration’s insistence that those questions must be resolved in any agreement.

As negotiators race to meet a July 1 deadline, this apparent concession will likely cause problems for the administration in Congress, where lawmakers have heard months of testimony from neutral experts saying this is a crucial element in verifying under any agreement that Iran’s nuclear program remains peaceful.

Once an agreement is signed, lawmakers will have 30 days to review it and decide whether to reject it. Obama can veto any rejection. The ability to verify a deal has been a major bipartisan concern, and may sway the votes of Democrats in whose hands the fate of any agreement will ultimately rest.

Iran is required by U.N. Security Council resolutions to detail any past secret work on nuclear weapons, which is believed to have ended more than a decade ago. But the International Atomic Energy Agency has said Tehran has not complied with that requirement.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who has emerged as the leading Democratic critic of the deal, noted the lack of progress in a floor speech Thursday.

“We can’t trust Iran to abide by its agreements or to abide by United Nations resolutions even when they are in the midst of negotiations, when you think they’d be behaving the best,” he said. “Why do we think we can trust them if they are violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, which is the world, not the U.S., not even the P5+1, but the world, telling them ‘you can’t do these things?'”

“Iran…needs to be held responsible for its commitments — forget about its word — its commitments. There can be no slippage, no delays, no obfuscation.”

Any concession on this issue may also cause a split in the negotiating group, most notably with France, which has taken a hard line on this issue. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said May 27 that it would be a deal-breaker if Iran denies access to military sites, backing up the IAEA’s interpretation of Iran’s obligations. He was reacting to comments a week earlier by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, that ruled out such access.