Their accusation, she said to Mr. Kerry, goes to the secretary of state’s “core as a human being and your intelligence, and I think you are very intelligent”.
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That held little sway with Republican opponents such as Senator James Risch of Idaho, who said the administration had been “bamboozled”, or Corker of Tennessee, who likened the inspection protocol for Iran to asking professional athletes to put “their own urine samples in the mail and asking us to believe it is them”.
A largely skeptical panel of senators grilled Secretary of State John Kerry over the Iran nuclear deal Thursday, as both sides tried out new lines of attack sure to be repeated throughout the agreement’s 60-day congressional review period. “It isn’t a better deal, some sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran’s complete capitulation”, Kerry said.
The deal has been greeted with deep skepticism in Congress by majority Republicans and some Democrats, who charge that the monitoring system that would be deployed at Iran’s nuclear facilities by the United Nations global Atomic Energy Agency won’t prevent the covert development of nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) speaks during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committ …
He said the deal ensures Iran would have to wait at least a year before producing enough weapons-grade material to build a bomb. “It is a wedding day where the bride is shouting, “I hate you and your family” and the groom is shouting, ‘I distrust you and you’ve always cheated on me, ‘ and each is announcing their distrust of the other at the outset”, Sen.
Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer’s message to House Democrats is simple: don’t worry about voting against the Iran deal, because no matter what, the U.S. will not allow the Islamic Republic to obtain a nuclear weapon. “That is the choice”, Kerry said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Republican lawmakers are universally opposed to the deal in its current form; Democrats have remained largely silent on how they plan to vote.
“The fact is that Iran now has extensive experience with nuclear fuel cycle technology”, Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Earnest says they are all a critical part of the agreement with Iran worked out by the U.S. and five other world powers. Ben Cardin of Maryland, Congress has 60 days to review the deal and pass a resolution of approval or disapproval.
Murphy, another member of the committee, said he still has questions about whether the inspection protocol will be as rigorous as the administration claims, but that if it is, he’ll support the deal.
Opening the listening to on a contentious notice, the committee’s Republican chairman, Bob Corker, criticized Kerry for the phrases he negotiated.
In US, top Republicans vowed Wednesday to do their utmost to scrap the deal as the biggest pro-Israel lobby prepared for an all-out campaign to pressure wary lawmakers into rejecting the agreement.
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Federica Mogherini, foreign policy chief of the European Union, will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss a range of regional issues, including the worldwide nuclear deal with Tehran, which has been met with concern in the Middle East.
