US Secretary of State John Kerry told US Republicans legislators who control the US Congress on Wednesday that they would not be able to modify any nuclear agreement struck between the US and Iran.
Kerry said he responded with “utter disbelief” to an open letter to Iran on Monday signed by Republican senators only that said that any deal would last only as long as US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, remains in office.
“When it says that Congress could actually modify the terms of an agreement at any time is flat wrong,” Kerry, who has been negotiating a deal to rein in Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “You do not have the right to modify an agreement reached executive-to-executive between leaders of a country.”
Photo: Bloomberg
However, US Senator Rand Paul told Kerry that any deal would need approval by Congress if it affected US sanctions against Iran.
Paul accused the Obama administration of trying to bypass Congress.
“The letter was to Iran, but it should have been cc’d to the White House because the White House needs to understand that any agreement that removes or changes legislation will have to be passed by us,” Paul said.
The White House has described the letter as “reckless” and “irresponsible,” saying that the letter interfered with efforts by six major powers to negotiate with Iran and prevent it from building a nuclear bomb.
The negotiations, which are to resume in Lausanne, Switzerland, next week, are at a critical juncture as the sides try to meet an end-of-the-month target for an interim deal, with a final deal in June.
“We have been clear from the beginning: We are not negotiating, a quote, legally binding plan; we are negotiating a plan that will have in it capacity for enforcement,” Kerry said. “The letter erroneously asserts this is a legally binding plan. It is not. We do not even have diplomatic relations with Iran.”
“It is incorrect when it says that Congress can actually modify terms of an agreement at any time. That is flat wrong,” Kerry said.
After the hearing US Senator Bob Corker, a Republican and chairman of the committee, said: “I want to follow up a bit on what he meant by that.”
The letter was an unusual intervention by US legislators into foreign policy, which is mainly the responsibility of the president’s administration.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the