Iranian MP Calls US Congress Bill on Nuclear Deal Political Game
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior Iranian lawmaker shrugged off a US Senate bill passed on Thursday, which would give Congress review rights over the possible nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers, saying that the move was only a game.
“The US Congress bill is a sort of game,” Esmail Kowsari, member of the parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, told the Tasnim News Agency on Friday.
The US Senate passed a bipartisan bill by a 98-1 vote which is expected to pass in the House, and has President Obama’s support.
The White House originally opposed the bill, proposed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), until some of its provisions were revised in a compromise deal with the committee’s ranking democrat, Ben Cardin (D-MD) last month.
Kowsari further referred to the legal procedure in Iran to approve the final nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), and said any deal should be approved by the Iranian parliament.
He then called on the Iranian administration to boost collaboration with the parliament to support the negotiating team in the ongoing nuclear talks.
Iran and the Group 5+1, also known as E3+3 or P5+1, are in talks to hammer out a lasting accord that would end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran's peaceful nuclear program.
On April 2, the two sides reached a framework nuclear agreement in Lausanne, Switzerland, with both sides committed to push for a final deal until the end of June.
Diplomats from Iran and the EU wrapped up the latest round of negotiations in New York on Tuesday and are slated to resume the talks in Vienna on May 12 to press on with the task of drafting the comprehensive deal.