WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee said on Wednesday the international nuclear deal with Iran should be strictly enforced, but did not call for an end to the agreement, saying Washington should work with allies. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs flawed as the deal is, I believe we must now enforce the hell out of it,\u201d Representative Ed Royce said at a hearing. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce as soon as on Thursday a new strategy for Iran that could include a first step toward Washington exiting the agreement. <\/p>\n
Royce, like every other Republican in the U.S. Congress, opposed the nuclear agreement reached under President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in 2015 and signed by the United States, Iran, China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union. <\/p>\n
But several of Obama\u2019s fellow Democrats also opposed the deal, including Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the foreign affairs panel. <\/p>\n
Engel said at the hearing that killing the deal would be a \u201cgrave mistake,\u201d since it is in place and backed by U.S. allies and other powers. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to work with allies and partners on a shared agenda that holds the regime in Iran accountable, not dividing America from our closest friends across the globe,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Trump is expected to announce an \u201coverall Iran strategy,\u201d including whether to decertify the international deal curbing Tehran\u2019s nuclear program ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline. <\/p>\n
If Trump declines to certify the Iran deal, it would open a 60-day window in which U.S. congressional leaders could move quickly to reimpose sanctions on Tehran suspended under the agreement. That could be a first step toward Washington existing the agreement, something strongly opposed by European allies. <\/p>\n
If Congress does not act, however, it would leave the agreement in place. Many congressional sources and others familiar with the process say the Trump administration is considering using decertification to increase pressure on Tehran, not to end the deal. <\/p>\n
Iranian officials have said they will not renegotiate. <\/p>\n
Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama<\/p>\n
Article source: http:\/\/feeds.reuters.com\/~r\/Reuters\/PoliticsNews\/~3\/jzJlLAlNjRA\/key-u-s-lawmakers-back-enforcing-not-ditching-iran-pact-idUSKBN1CG1XE<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee said on Wednesday the international nuclear deal with Iran should be strictly enforced, but did not call for an end to the agreement, saying Washington should work with allies. \u201cAs flawed as the deal is, I believe we must now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-95411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}