Iran’s Foreign Minister Responds: It Will be an International Agreement

In an unprecedented action, 47 US Senators wrote an open letter to the “leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” warning them of signing a nuclear agreement with the US government.

The letters with an introduction that the writers have reached the conclusion that Iranian officials “may not fully understand” the American constitution and Congressional authority. They remind Iranian leaders of two issues:

First, that any international agreement with the United States or any foreign state must have the consent of two thirds of the US Senate vote and that if it is not ratified by Congress it is merely an “executive agreement.”

Second, while the US president can remain in office only for two terms, Senators can remain in the Senate for six terms.

They wrote that President Obama will leave his office in January of 2017 while they shall remain in office beyond that, perhaps for decades.

Then the letter takes a more threatening tone and reads that based on these “two constitutional provisions, … we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear weapons-program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei.”

The Senators they stress, “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”

The publication of this letter speaks of a deep fundamental divide between the majority of Republicans in Congress and Barack Obama’s diplomacy regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Observers view the letter to be an unprecedented act in which a group of American senators write a letter to the leaders of a country which they view to be inimical to the interests of their country which consequently weakens the position of their own president.

The letter comes after two major recent events in Washington DC: first, the speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in Congress at the invitation of American Republicans and second, the re-emphasis by the White House that it would veto any resolution that Congress may pass obliging the administration to get Congressional approval for a nuclear agreement with Iran.

It appears that Republicans have lost hope that Obama’s administration would include them in the nuclear negotiations process and so as a last resort have written to Iranian officials to scare them off signing an agreement with the US government, as a way to disrupt the course of the negotiations between the two countries.

Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif who leads the nuclear talks between Iran and the US responded immediately to the letter and said it “lacked any legal value.”

He expressed dismay on how could a group of representatives of a country write a letter to the leaders of another country against their own president and government. He said, “The letter shows that not only are they (US Senators) not foreign to international rules, but they do not understand the intricacies of their own constitution about the powers of the president of the United States regarding foreign policy.” “We believe this letter has no legal value and is merely a propaganda ploy. More interesting is that while the talks have not yet come to any conclusion or agreement, pressure groups in America are so worried that they are resorting to unconventional ways more than ever which indicates that they, like Netanyahu, are against any agreement.”

Earlier this week, Zarif had for the first time revealed to Seda weekly magazine which is close to Iranian moderate reformers that if an agreement was reached over the nuclear issue with major world powers, Iran intended to take it to the United Nations Security Council so it acquires full legal status. According to Zarif, the agreement would be turned into “a resolution under chapter seven of the United Nations, which would consequently make it an international enforceable agreement for all governments.”

In reaction to what American Senators had written that a nuclear agreement between Washington and Tehran could be annulled at any time, Zarif yesterday said, “If the next US president revokes America’s international obligations with a strike of a pen, it will be blatantly violating international law. Particularly because this agreement will be an obligatory Security Council resolution and the product of negotiations and an agreement with all the five permanent members of the Security Council.”

Zarif, who is himself US educated with a PhD in international relations also said mockingly, “US Senators should know that according to international law Congress cannot in future change the provisions of an agreement and any such act would constitute a violation of US international obligations.”