A landmark Iran nuclear agreement was reached Tuesday after clearing final obstacles, and a senior diplomat said it included a compromise between Washington and Tehran that would allow U.N. inspectors to press for visits to Iranian military sites as part of their monitoring duties.
President Obama will have a hard time getting congressional approval of a Iranian nuclear deal, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Iranian President Rouhani, saying, “The ruler of Iran, Khamenei, was quoted as saying the U.S. must be fought, regardless of whether there is a [nuclear] agreement. The president of Iran, Rouhani, led a hate march in the streets of Tehran in which U.S. and Israeli flags were burned and many chanted ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel.’
A deal has been reached between the world powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program after a series of major American concessions, Ehud Yaari, the Middle East affairs commentator for Israel’s Channel 2 television, said Friday night. “It is done. It is done,” he said, and will be signed “early next week.”
An agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program could create a bonanza for U.S. defense contractors who already are benefiting as the Obama administration tries to assuage Israeli and Gulf Arab concerns by cutting deals for more than $6 billion in military hardware.
The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program will continue past the latest July 9 deadline, US Secretary of State John Kerry said from the talks in Vienna on Thursday evening.
After missing a second deadline in a week on Tuesday for concluding the nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers, the US administration has begun to suggest the talks could continue without set timetables.
America hailed “substantial progress in every area” of its negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions on Tuesday, but declared that another deadline for a deal would be ignored and the talks extended by 72 hours.
A senior Iranian military official said Sunday that despite the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and the US-led P5+1 group of world powers, America will remain Tehran’s enemy.
As diplomats rush to reach an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. military is stockpiling conventional bombs so powerful that strategists say they could cripple Tehran’s most heavily fortified nuclear complexes, including one deep underground.
Jerusalem reacted furiously over reports Saturday that world powers were closing in on a long-sought pact that would see the lifting of sanctions in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The head of the international nuclear watchdog group — a day after returning from Tehran — said Saturday that a report documenting Iran’s past nuclear activities could be completed by the end of the year.
The Hebrew-language Walla! reported Tuesday that it has learned from a foreign source that IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot has appointed Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan to head a special team tasked with examining the military options against Iran.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sunday that the United States has lost its edge going into the final days of a nuclear negotiation with Iran.
Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) revived on Thursday long-stalled legislation to impose and extend sanctions on Iran for a period of at least 10 more years, according to sources familiar with the move.
Iran’s supreme leader has apparently rejected key provisions of a framework agreement reached in April between his negotiators and those of six world powers.
The U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are getting closer and closer in Iraq, even sharing a base, while Iran uses those militias to expand its influence in Iraq and fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime in neighboring Syria.
Iran’s parliament voted Sunday to oppose the inspections of government military sites as part of a pending, multi-nation agreement to curb the country’ nuclear program — potentially complicating a final deal ahead of a June 30 deadline.
Iran’s support for international terrorist groups remained undiminished last year and even expanded in some respects, the Obama administration said Friday, less than two weeks before the deadline for completing a nuclear deal that could provide Tehran with billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions.
Iran and world powers reached a framework agreement on Thursday on curbing Iran’s nuclear program for at least a decade, a step towards a final pact that could end 12 years of brinkmanship, threats and confrontation.