December 13-2013
US Secretary of State John Kerry has doubts Iran is prepared to rein in its nuclear program enough to satisfy the Big Six powers, but he urged US lawmakers not to impose new sanctions until that question is answered.
“I came away from our preliminary negotiations with serious questions about whether or not they’re ready and willing to make some of the choices that have to be made,” Kerry told the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday.
“Has Iran changed its nuclear calculus? I honestly don’t think we can say for sure yet. And we certainly don’t take words at face value,” Kerry said. “Believe me, this is not about trust.”
Kerry said, “Given the history, we are all rightly skeptical about whether people [in Tehran] are ready to make the hard choices to live up to this.”
But he stressed Iran’s seriousness would be put to the test over the six months set out in the interim deal to negotiate a comprehensive agreement.
Kerry said, “We now have the best chance we’ve ever had to test this proposition without losing anything” and he urged lawmakers to hold off imposing new sanctions to give negotiators time to work.
“I’m not saying never [impose sanctions]…. If this doesn’t work, we’re coming back and asking you for more. I’m just saying not right now.”
Kerry said the world faces a crossroads, “a hinge point in history”—one path could lead to a resolution of concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, the other could lead to war.
And he warned that if the US went ahead with new sanctions now, it risked angering not just Iran, but Washington’s Big Six partners, and could give Tehran an excuse to flout the deal.
