GENEVA — Secretary of State John Kerry heads home Monday to defend a proposed nuclear deal with Iran in testimony before doubting lawmakers, as the Obama administration is moving to head off rising criticism from Israel.
Kerry has already begun making the case that an Iranian agreement to temporarily freeze elements of its nuclear programs in exchange for a partial easing of Western sanctions would be a viable step toward negotiating a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.
If negotiators in the next several weeks can reach an agreement on the draft proposal — a result that eluded top world diplomats in intensive sessions with the Iranians that ended here Sunday — talks can move toward making “absolutely certain … that Iran never has a nuclear weapon,” Kerry said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Far from being naive about Iran’s capabilities and intentions, as some opponents have suggested, administration negotiators are “some of the most serious and capable, expert people in our government, who have spent a lifetime dealing with both Iran” and nuclear proliferation issues, Kerry said.
“We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid,” he added. “I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe.”
Congress is threatening to push through additional financial sanctions against Iran, which could complicate the talks.
For those convinced that Iran still has every intention of building a nuclear weapon, the relaxed demeanor of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at a brief news conference here early Sunday proved their point. Despite the failure to conclude the deal, Zarif said, he found “political determination, willingness and good faith” among his diplomatic counterparts.
Iran would not be so publicly cheerful, Israeli officials and doubting U.S. lawmakers argued, if it was not on the verge of winning a deal that was bad for their side.
But an additional reason for Zarif’s smiling banter with journalists may have been that those across the table from the Iranian team reportedly spent at least as much time debating each other as they did him.
“Obviously, the six countries may have differences of views,” Zarif said benignly of his counterparts from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. “But we are working together, and hopefully we will be able to reach an agreement when we meet again” 10 days from now, he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has kept up a steady drumbeat of public criticism, said on Sunday that he has begun calling world leaders to convince them that the proposed agreement was “dangerous not just for us; it is also dangerous for them.”
“I emphasized that the proffered deal does not include the dismantling of even one centrifuge. I asked all the leaders — why the haste?” Netanyahu said at a commemoration for Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. “I proposed that they wait, that they consider the matter seriously.”
In a letter sent Saturday night to major Jewish organizations around the world, including in the United States, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett urged them to pressure their governments not to sign the deal.
U.S. officials believe there is no chance that Iran, absent a phased negotiated deal, will ever give in to sanctions pressure. But Israeli concerns are shared by many in Congress, and the Obama administration is treating them gingerly.
On Sunday, the administration dispatched Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who has headed the U.S. negotiating team with Iran, to Israel to explain more details of the proposed agreement, and to repeat President Barack Obama’s pledge that he will never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
Kerry broke off a week-long Middle East trip to travel here, along with his fellow foreign ministers, after negotiating teams said they had reached the point where the participation of top diplomats could push a draft deal to completion.
From Geneva, Kerry headed to Abu Dhabi for a brief trip. He plans to arrive home late Monday in advance of congressional testimony Tuesday.
At his own news conference early Sunday, Kerry said that adjournment of the high-level talks without success was simply a pause and not a failure. The draft document is complicated, and the negotiating pace has been intense, he said. Participating governments need to study it and explain it to their own officials and publics before returning here later this month to resume their talks and hopefully reach agreement, he said.
“There is no question in my mind that we are closer now to a deal” than they were last week, Kerry said. “This can be done,” he added. “I’m not going to tell you it will be. But I can absolutely tell you it can be.”
