John Kerry defens US Iran deal in front of senate committee.
Photo: AFP
Kerry insinuates Netanyahu does not know Iran deal
Secretary of State John Kerry defends Obama administration's nuclear negotiations with Iran, says US policy is to prevent Iranians from attaining atomic weapons.
Secretary of State John Kerry
is defended the Obama administration's nuclear negotiations
with Iran on Tuesday during a foreign appropriations committee meeting, saying the US policy is to prevent the Iranians from getting atomic weapons.
Kerry told Congress on Tuesday that the administration's policy is that "Iran will not get a nuclear weapon." He said opposition to a potential deal is misplaced because it is coming from people who don't know what an agreement might look like – an indirect jab at Netanyahu and a reiteration US government claims that Israel has "cherry-picked" information from the Iran talks and incorrectly represented them.
Kerry says those who criticize Iran deal don't know what it is. (Photo: AFP)
"Anybody running around right now jumping in to say, 'Well we don't like the deal,' or this or that, doesn't know what the deal is." Kerry added, "There is no deal yet, and I caution people to wait and see what these negotiations produce."
Kerry spoke a day after returning from the latest round of talks with Iran. US and Iranian officials reported progress on getting to a deal that would clamp down on Tehran's nuclear activities for at least 10 years but then slowly ease restrictions. Negotiators are rushing to try to meet a March 31 deadline for a framework agreement.
Kerry added that an agreement with Iran had not yet been reached and that he was unsure if a deal could be reached, adding that despite this, continuing the talks would be the best solution to solve the issue.
“Since 2013, we have been testing whether we can achieve that goal diplomatically,” he said. “I don’t know yet.”
According to the US government's stance on the Iranian nuclear issue, sanctions still cause Tehran to lose hundreds of billions of dollars in oil deals that the country is not able to carry out.
"Iran has considerably less money than it hoped to achieve during the interim agreement," said Kerry. "Twenty five to thirty five billions dollars a year are put aside and Iran cannot touch that money."
During his address, Kerry also announced his plans to meet Saudi Arabia's new king, Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud next week in London, as well as foreign ministers from the Gulf states in order to update them on the progress of the US' talks with Iran.
