US President Barack Obama said that he and other world leaders have offered Iran an “extraordinarily reasonable deal” that will test whether the leadership of the Islamic nation is serious about at last resolving the dispute over its nuclear program.
Even as negotiators appear close to an agreement, Obama highlighted the challenge of what comes next: ensuring that any pact forged in Geneva can pass muster in Tehran, where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has expressed deep skepticism about a settlement with the outside world.
“We have made progress in narrowing the gaps, but those gaps still exist,” Obama said in an interview with CBS News that aired on Sunday on Face the Nation. “And I would say that over the next month or so, we’re going to be able to determine whether or not their system is able to accept what would be an extraordinarily reasonable deal, if in fact, as they say, they are only interested in peaceful nuclear programs.”
With a potential deal in sight, US Secretary of State John Kerry spent much of the past week consulting with allies and reassuring those nervous about the prospect. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress to warn that the terms as publicly reported would make it a “bad deal,” which would still leave Iran with a nuclear infrastructure that it could use to eventually make bombs.
Many Republicans and some Democrats share Netanyahu’s concerns and have been drafting legislation intended to give Congress a say in whether an agreement would be satisfactory. At the insistence of Democrats, Senate Republicans agreed to hold off advancing such legislation for a few more weeks.
On the same program on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, made clear that he intends to pursue the matter eventually.
“Obviously, the president doesn’t want us involved in this,” he said. “But he’s going to need us if he’s going to lift any of the existing sanctions. And so I think he cannot work around Congress forever.”
Negotiators from the US, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran have until later this month to develop the outline of a deal, under a preliminary agreement that has limited Iran’s nuclear program in the meantime. If they succeed, they will have until June to translate that into a detailed document.
The negotiators have been talking about an agreement that would limit Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium to the point that, in theory, it would take it a year to “break out” and create enough fuel for a bomb if it violated the terms, to be verified by international inspectors. In exchange, the world powers would ease the sanctions that have strangled Iran’s economy.
The deal would last at least 10 years but then expire.
Asked if a deal was imminent, Obama seemed to suggest it may be.
“I think it is fair to say that there is an urgency because we now have been negotiating for well over a year,” he said.
He said Iran must decide whether it is willing to open up in the way such an agreement would require.
“If we are able to verify that in fact they are not developing weapons systems, then there’s a deal to be had,” Obama said. “But that’s going to require them to accept the kind of verification and constraints on their program that so far, at least, they have not been willing to say yes to.”
Obama said he would not accept a bad deal.
“If there’s no deal, then we walk away,” he said.
Netanyahu on Sunday said that he opposed the deal as it seemed to be emerging, but acknowledged that in his speech to Congress he effectively backed off from his past insistence on leaving Iran with zero capacity to enrich uranium, even at lower grades for civilian fuel.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion