Sen. Corker calls on Congress to reject Iran accord
US Republican Senator Bob Corker has called on Congress to reject the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Corker, the influential chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations - the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - will not be "in our national interests."
"It is Congress’s responsibility to determine whether this agreement will be in our national interest, will make the United States safer and will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program. I do not believe that it will,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post published on Monday.
Corker said the nuclear deal would further industrialize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
“Rather than end Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, over time this deal industrializes the program,” the Tennessee Republican said. “Congress should reject this deal and send it back to the president.”
The “best way” for Congress to push back against Iran, the senator emphasized, is to reject the agreement that would otherwise allow Tehran to have “hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.”
Earlier this month, Corker said Congress would extend the current Iranian sanctions law, which expires at the end of 2016.
"The first things Congress will do when we finish this debate, I would say, give it 60 days, we will pass that extension," he told reporters.
Republicans oppose the nuclear agreement with Iran, but they need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress to override a presidential veto.
President Barack Obama has pledged to veto a resolution of disapproval and there is bipartisan belief that opponents of the deal lack the votes to override a veto.
More than half of the Democrats and Independents in the Senate are backing the agreement.
The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program.
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