Kerry Urging an Iran Sanctions Pause Amid Negotations

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

By Bob Drummond - Nov 13, 2013

Secretary of State John Kerry is pressing U.S. lawmakers to give diplomacy a chance, parrying attacks from Congress, Israel and Iran over talks that broke up last week without a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Kerry is set to meet with the Senate Banking Committee behind closed doors today to urge members to hold off, at least temporarily, on proposals to increase economic pressure on Iran by imposing additional sanctions. Vice President Joe Biden and Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman are also expected to brief lawmakers, according to a U.S. official who asked not to be identified discussing private meetings

“This is not about being for or against sanctions,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters yesterday in a briefing. “This is a decision to support diplomacy and a possible peaceful resolution to this issue.”

Lawmakers from both parties in Congress and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have criticized negotiations in Geneva last week toward a first-step agreement on limiting Iran’s nuclear program that would ease some existing sanctions without first ensuring an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/kerry-urging-an-iran-sanctions-pause-amid-negotations.html

[karynnj]

1. Interetsing that Bloomberg uses a misleading headline

Kerry is calling - as the text of the article notes - for NOT INCREASING sanctions while they are negotiating. Even in the diplomatic proposals, no one is calling for the elimination of the sanction that are already there. (There are some proposals to loosen frozen Iranian money)

I hope that people will call their Senators on this. You KNOW that AIPAC is organizing people tpo call them to back Netanyahu's position.

J Street is trying to encourage this - http://act.jstreet.org/sign/iran_negotiations/

(Here's a RW Jewish source angry that J Street is doing this - notice how they show Netanyahu (straight out of Saturday Evening Post style! - http://www.jewishpress.com/news/netanyahu-apoplectic-about-iran-sanctions-deal-j-street-euphoric-video/2013/11/08/ )