House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said he feared the United States bargained its position in a nuclear agreement with Iran during a hearing on Tuesday in which Secretary of State John Kerry testified.
The agreement calls for loosened economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for a six-month hiatus of certain components of its nuclear program while further negotiations continue.
“The key issue is whether a final agreement would allow Iran to manufacture nuclear fuel,” Royce said. “Unfortunately, the interim agreement reads ‘yes,’ it will. My concern is that we have bargained away our fundamental position, which is enshrined in six U.N. Security Council resolutions – that Iran should not be enriching and reprocessing – in exchange for a false confidence that we can effectively check Iran’s misuse of these key nuclear bomb-making technologies.”
Royce added that it took years to build the sanctions that pressured Iran into negotiations.
“…While the interim agreement relief is limited, governments throughout the world will not be easily convinced to reverse course and ratchet-up sanctions pressure if Iran is only buying time with this agreement,” Roberts said.
Kerry requested that the House and Senate do not approve new sanctions against Iran until negotiations play out.
“We are asking you to give our negotiators and our experts the time and the space to do their jobs and that includes asking you while we negotiate that you hold off imposing new sanctions,” Kerry said.
Kerry added that he would ask Congress to approve additional sanctions if the agreement fails.