NEW YORK – President Obama's celebration of a “framework agreement” in a Rose Garden statement and Secretary of State John Kerry’s declaration of victory in Lausanne, Switzerland, overlooked the fact that two days after the deadline, the administration still had not reached a final deal in an attempt to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
What the United States – in the “P5+1” coalition with the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia and Germany – accomplished in marathon negotiations with Iran that stretched over a year was an agreement to agree to a final nuclear deal sometime between now and June 30.
In the meantime, the Washington Free Beacon reported, the Western powers have agreed to allow Iran to continue operating the core aspects of its nuclear program and terminate all sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Kerry's Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, boasted: “We will continue enriching (uranium); we will continue research and development.”
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In a statement jointly issued by the White House and the State Department that outlined the “parameters” of a final nuke deal, the Obama administration admitted, “Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz told CNN, however, that those "celebrating in Lausanne are disconnected from reality, one in which Iran has refused to make concessions on the nuclear issue and continues to threaten Israel and all other countries in the Middle East."
"Since the statement is far from being a real agreement, we will continue our efforts to explain and convince the world in the hope of preventing a bad agreement, or at least make the necessary amendments and improvements," Steinitz said.
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Speaking from the White House press room just before the Obama administration announced the tentative agreement reached Thursday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest reporters that France, China and Russia remained very much in line with the U.S. and the EU in the talks, even though their foreign ministers physically left the negotiating table in Lausanne when the March 31 deadline came and went.
The Christian Science Monitor observed that achieving a “framework agreement” now became a “do-or-die target for the U.S., as the talks devolved into a two way discussion between Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as the departure of the French, Russian, and Chinese foreign ministers left their portfolios in the hands of each country’s technical experts who remained behind in Switzerland as the talks extended the additional two days into April."
A close reading of the White House-State Department “parameters” statement makes clear that instead of Iran agreeing not to stop or reduce its enrichment of uranium now, Iran agreed that it would reduce its installed centrifuges by two-thirds, provided there is a deal in June.
Instead of the United States, the EU and the P5+1 agreeing to lift sanctions on Iran now, the Western powers agreed sanctions would be eased stepwise as Iran reduced its nuclear program, provided there is a deal in June.
What was less certain was whether Iran will get any immediate relief from sanctions simply because Zarif agreed Thursday in Switzerland that Iran would come to a final agreement in June, based supposedly on the restrictions to the Iranian nuclear program proposed in Thursday’s “framework agreement.”
House Speaker John Boehner in a statement issued late Thursday made clear that Congress plans to press the Obama administration on the details of the “parameters” of the framework agreement.
“The president says negotiators have cleared the basic threshold needed to continue talks, but the parameters for a final deal represent an alarming departure from the White House’s initial goal,” Boehner said. “My longtime concerns about the parameters of this potential agreement remain, but my immediate concern is the administration signaling it will provide near-term sanctions relief. Congress must be allowed to fully review the details of any agreement before any sanctions are lifted.”
“After visiting with our partners on the ground in the Middle East this week, my concerns about Iran’s efforts to foment unrest, brutal violence and terror have only grown,” Boehner continued. “It would be naïve to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear program, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region.”
Still, Obama in his Rose Garden statement was upbeat.
“Today, after many months of tough, principled diplomacy, we have achieved the framework for that deal,” he said.
“And it is a good deal, a deal that meets our core objectives,” he stressed, continuing with a statement that made clear all the anticipated benefits of containing Iran’s nuclear program were now conditioned on a final deal being reached by the new deadline.
“This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon,” Obama continued, qualifying his statement by the use of “would” rather than “will.”
“Iran will face strict limitations on its program, and Iran has also agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification,” Obama emphasized.
Still as the “parameters” document released simultaneously by the White House and State Department made clear, all the “framework” agreements Iran made today in Switzerland are subject to modification in the negotiations now scheduled to extend an extra three months. Iran today actually agreed to implement no new international inspections but continue running even its secret weapons program without interruption.
Twitter posts indicated the “deal” announced today in Switzerland resulted in spontaneous celebrations in the street punctuated by the sound of cars honking as Obama’s comments from the Rose Garden were broadcast live by Iranian television.