John Kerry Stands By Account of Iran Deal
Image by getty images
Secretary of State John Kerry defended on Sunday his presentation of a framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program after a different interpretation was offered by Iran’s supreme leader, and a prominent U.S. senator said Kerry was “delusional.”
“I will stand by every fact that I have said,” Kerry told ABC’s “This Week.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had strong words last week about Iran’s agreement with major world powers, declaring that once a final deal was reached it should result in an immediate end to all sanctions on Iran.
Kerry has said the sanctions would be suspended in phases.
“You know, they’re going to put their spin on their point of view and obviously they’ll allege that we’re putting a spin on our point of view,” Kerry said of the Iranian comments.
There were also differing U.S. and Iranian interpretations of a previous interim agreement with Iran, but Iran upheld that agreement, Kerry said.
Iran and major world powers – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – reached a framework nuclear agreement on April 2 that would curb Iran’s nuclear program and prevent it from being able to develop a bomb, in exchange for the West lifting economic sanctions. Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Kerry noted that President Barack Obama on Saturday delivered a public rebuke to Republican Senator John McCain for having called Kerry “delusional” in an interview in which McCain questioned whether Kerry was being forthcoming about the deal.
Kerry added that Russia, not a U.S. ally, had issued a statement saying that the facts about the deal as expressed by the United States were “reliable and accurate information.”
Kerry, who will brief Congress on the deal on Monday and Tuesday, warned lawmakers not to put in place any conditions that would impede implementation of the Iran deal. The framework is meant to be the basis of a final agreement to be reached by the end of June.
Congress is poised to advance a bipartisan bill to give lawmakers the right to review any final deal and to have a vote on whether sanctions imposed by Congress should be suspended.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, a co-author of the bill, on Sunday did not rule out that senators would change a provision that has irritated the Obama administration. It would require the administration to certify that Iran is not involved in terrorism attacks against the United States.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news the rest of 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Membership Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
