Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Christopher Coons (D-DL) said the fact the United States can’t even coordinate with Iran and the European Union on how to announce the proposed Iran deal means “the early indicators are not encouraging.”
When Mitchell asked, “In a joint statement, the Iranian Minister here, Zarif, is going to have a statement, then separately, Kerry will speak. They couldn’t even agree on the format. That does not bode well for getting everything, all parts of this technical agreement done by June 30.”
Coons replied, “That’s right, Andrea, this is a very concerning structure to the announcement that’s going to come fairly soon. And I look forward to—I expect to be briefed thoroughly about it on the Foreign Relations Committee. We’re going to return to this topic when the Senate goes back into session in just a few weeks. And I do expect that the administration will keep to their position, which is that no deal is better than a bad deal and that a nuclear weapons capable Iran is unacceptable.”
“But the early indicators, as you suggested Andrea, are not encouraging if we can’t even come to an agreement about how and when and where to announce the framework,” he continued. “I will give this a fair consideration, as I think all of us in Congress should. I think it is important to try and reach a negotiated solution. But if Iran is not willing to be transparent and to come clean about its illicit nuclear weapons program to re-engineer its heavy water reactor in Iraq, to give up much of its existing heavily enriched uranium stock pile and freeze its centrifuge, I don’t think we should enter into an agreement.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.