The US Senate rejected an effort on Tuesday to require any nuclear agreement with Iran to be considered an international treaty, which would have forced any deal to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate’s 100 members.
The Senate voted 57-39 to reject the measure, which Republican US Senator Ron Johnson offered as an amendment to the Iran Nuclear Review Act, a bill requiring an Iran nuclear deal to be reviewed by the US Congress.
The amendment’s backing by 39 Republicans indicated that there could be an intense round of debates in the coming days as the Senate hammers out its final version of the legislation.
US Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other top Senate Republicans were among those voting for the amendment, despite an emotional appeal against it from US Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and author of the bill.
Corker and US Senator Ben Cardin, the committee’s top Democrat, have been working against so-called “poison pill” amendments seeking to toughen the bill, which they say would kill its chances of becoming law by alienating Democrats and provoking a veto by US President Barack Obama.
Corker announced on Tuesday that his bill has 67 cosponsors, enough to override a presidential veto.
Obama had threatened to veto the bill as a threat to ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran until last week, when leaders of the foreign relations panel agreed on a compromise that removed many of the measure’s strictest provisions.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that Washington and other major powers were closer than ever to a deal with Iran, although more tough talks lay ahead of a June 30 deadline for reaching a final agreement in which Tehran would drastically scale back its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of crippling economic sanctions.
The White House has made clear the veto threat would be back in place if the measure were significantly amended as it moves through the Senate and the US House of Representatives.
In other developments, the US Navy sent a destroyer toward the Persian Gulf on Tuesday after Iran took control of a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship it accused of trespassing in its territorial waters, US military officials said.
The ship, the Maersk Tigris, with 24 crew members, was intercepted by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps patrol boats on Tuesday morning while traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, a Pentagon official said.
The Iranian forces fired shots across the ship’s bow after its captain declined an order by the forces to divert farther into Iranian waters, the official said.
The official said the ship was traveling through “an internationally recognized maritime route.”
After being fired on, it issued a distress call, prompting the US Navy to direct a destroyer, the Farragut, to the area and to put aircraft on standby to monitor the situation.
Danish shipping company Maersk yesterday said the ship’s crew were safe and “in good spirits.”
Maersk said it was in dialogue with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and seeking more information, as it still did not know the reason for the seizure of the vessel.
Additional reporting by NY Times News Service
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