WASHINGTON – During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the interim agreement requires “no sacrifice” of Iran and that the sanctions relief being offered by the U.S. risks creating “a rush” to do business with Iran.
“Once you begin loosening sanctions, and people begin to see that Iran is now going to become not a rogue country but part of the international community…there is a rush…to do business with them. And I think that’s why we’re all concerned that we did an interim deal that has no sacrifice on their part whatsoever,” said Corker. “Obviously, we’re disappointed but hopeful that somehow you can put the genie back in the bottle and end up with some type of agreement that averts warfare. Because of all of us do want this to succeed. We just don’t know how we get there with an interim deal framed in this way.”
On November 21, Corker introduced legislation, the Iran Nuclear Compliance Act of 2013, to keep the pressure on Iran during the negotiations and prevent an interim agreement from becoming the final deal. The bill requires Iran to fully comply with any interim deal and meet the basic conditions for an acceptable final agreement before the president of the United States could waive additional sanctions. It further requires an immediate snapback of all sanctions after confirmation of Iran’s noncompliance at any point or if an acceptable final deal isn’t reached within six months.
Key provisions of the legislation are available here. Full text of the bill and an additional summary are available here.
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