Republicans Tell Blinken Not To Sign A Deal With Iran Brokered By Russia

US House Republicans have written a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for Washington to abandon the Vienna nuclear talks with Iran.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul published the letter to Blinken on Saturday, saying “We are alarmed that the Biden Administration may be preparing to evade the clear requirements of the law by pretending that a new deal is somehow a ‘continuation of’ or ‘return to’ the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was submitted to Congress back in 2015.”

“That would be an absurd and lawless claim. Any deal the Administration concludes cannot be a return to the original JCPOA. The United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018”, they said.

They expressed urgent concern that “the Administration is working through Russian intermediaries to finalize an Iran nuclear deal without submitting it for Congressional consideration, as required by law”.

The lawmakers said the agreement would hand tens of billions of dollars to “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism” and remove sanctionson “terrorists with blood on their hands”, which would require Congressional review.

Republicans have consistently opposed President Joe Biden’s policy of reviving the JCPOA and lifting sanctions imposed by former president Donald Trump.

They said Iran has violated JCPOA limitations in numerous cases, including producing equipment for advanced centrifuges and stockpiling uranium enriched at 20% and 60% purity, noting such violations make it impossible to simply “return” to the 2015 deal.