Iran’s two top leaders insisted Thursday that their country would not sign a deal limiting its nuclear program unless all international sanctions are immediately lifted, calling into question whether President Obama’s “historic understanding” will survive to become a formal agreement.
In separate statements, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran’s ruling Shiite Muslim theocracy, and President Hassan Rouhani both signaled that Iran was not yet satisfied with the framework the Shiite theocracy hammered out in Lausanne, Switzerland, with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.
Their comments were the latest indication that the framework is still quite fragile, and that details the White House is using to sell any possible deal to skeptical members of Congress are unreliable because they may elude final agreement as the talks progress toward a July 1 deadline.
Khamenei neither supported nor opposed the framework in his first public comments since it was announced April 2, saying details yet to be worked out were crucial to the success of the talks.
“It is possible that while discussing the details, the other disloyal party intends to limit our country,” Khamenei said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “What has happened so far will neither guarantee the agreement itself nor its content. It will not even guarantee completion of the negotiations. Therefore it is meaningless to congratulate me or others about it.”
Khamenei emphasized his points on his English-language Twitter feed, citing the U.S. fact sheet detailing the framework as an example of “lying and breaching promises,” and saying “all sanctions should be removed just when the deal is reached. If sanctions removal depends on another process then why we started to talk?”
His tweets echoed Rouhani’s comments in a speech marking National Nuclear Technology Day in which IRNA quoted him as saying that sanctions must be lifted on the same day any deal takes effect or Iran will not sign it.
U.S. officials have said the lifting of sanctions would be a process that would occur after Iran addresses key nuclear-related concerns. The administration also has to contend with pending legislation that would tie Obama’s ability to suspend sanctions to the process of seeking congressional approval of any deal — something Obama has so far refused to do.
In an interview with CBS, Secretary of State John Kerry said lawmakers would have to get used to the eventual end of U.S. sanctions against Iran if they want to have a nuclear deal.
“First of all, the sanctions were put in place to bring them to negotiations,” he said. “That was the entire purpose. So now that they’ve negotiated and have an agreement, people can’t complain and say, ‘oh my gosh, if they comply with all the things they said, they’re going to do that we wanted them to do, we’re going to now not lift them.’ Doesn’t work. There’s no equation there. It simply doesn’t work.”
But sanctions aren’t the only concern. In his speech, Khamenei also cast doubt on what measures Iran would accept to verify its compliance with a nuclear deal and ensure it is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
“Any unconventional inspection or monitoring which would make Iran into a special case, would not be acceptable, and the monitoring must only be as monitoring regimes taking place all over the world and nothing more,” he said, according to a translation of his speech provided by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
On Wednesday, Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan said international inspectors would not be allowed to visit military sites.
“Visiting military centers are among the red lines and no visit to these centers will be allowed,” Dehqan said, according to a Defense Ministry statement.
Experts, including former U.N. weapons inspectors and those who have advised administration officials in the talks, say a comprehensive verification regime that includes complete access to known or suspected nuclear sites and a complete accounting of Iran’s past military nuclear efforts, is essential if any deal is to meet the administration’s goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
