Obama trying to stop sanctions on Iran
Iran Press TV
Mon Dec 9, 2013 11:11AM GMT
US President Barack Obama is dispatching two of his top diplomats to Capitol Hill next week to prevent new sanctions from being passed on Iran.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman are going to persuade hawks in Congress that further sanctions on Iran would only derail the current nuclear negotiations.
The two high-ranking officials are scheduled to testify in public before House and Senate panels about the interim nuclear deal reached last month in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 - The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus German.
Kerry will brief the House Foreign Affairs panel on Tuesday and Sherman and Treasury sanctions official David Cohen will do the same on Thursday in front of the Senate Banking Committee.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier that "passing any new sanctions right now will undermine our efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution" to a decade-long dispute over the Iranian nuclear energy program.
According to the six-month deal struck in Geneva, the US and five other powers have agreed to reduce some of the existing economic sanctions on Iran. The interim deal gives negotiators the time and space to discuss a long-term agreement in which Iran would continue to enrich "low level" uranium while the world powers would lift all sanctions on the nation.
AT/ARA
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