Khamenei Calls 'Death to America' as Kerry Hails Progress on Nuke Deal
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| Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei |
Day after Obama urges Iran to seize ‘historic opportunity,’ supreme leader says US seeks to create insecurity
Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord.
Khamenei
told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western
demands. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the
ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America
is the original source of this pressure.
“They insist on putting pressure on our dear
people’s economy,” he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at
halting Iran’s nuclear program. “What is their goal? Their goal is to
put the people against the system,” he said. “The politics of America is
to create insecurity,” he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran
and elsewhere in the region.
Khamenei’s comments contrasted with those of
Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said “achieving a deal is possible”
by the March 31 target date for a preliminary accord.
Kerry was more circumspect, as he spoke to
reporters after six days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
The talks, made “substantial progress,” he said, but “important gaps
remain.
“We have an opportunity to get this right,”
Kerry said, as he urged Iran to make “fundamental decisions” that prove
to the world it has no interest in atomic weapons.
But Khamenei warned against expectations that
even a done deal would mend the more than three-decade freeze between
the two nations in place since the Iranian revolution and siege of the
American Embassy, proclaiming that Washington and Tehran remained on
opposite sides on most issues.
“Negotiations with America are solely on the nuclear issue and nothing else. Everyone has to know that,” Khamenei said.
In a reflection of the delicate state of negotiations, other officials differed on how close the sides were to a deal.
Top Russian negotiator Sergey Ryabkov and
Iran’s atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said in recent days that
technical work was nearly done. But French officials insisted the sides
were far from any agreement.
Kerry was departing later Saturday to meet
with European allies in London, in part to ensure unity, before
returning to Washington. Kerry said the U.S. and its five negotiating
partners — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — are “united in
our goal, our approach, our resolve and our determination.”
But France, which raised last minute
objections to an interim agreement reached with Iran in 2013, could
threaten a deal again. It is particularly opposed to providing Iran with
quick relief from international sanctions and wants a longer timeframe
for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity.
“France wants an agreement, but a robust
agreement,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French radio.
“That is to say, an accord that really guarantees that Iran can
obviously have access to the civil nuclear (program).”
“But to the atomic bomb? No.”
France indicated Saturday
that it would push for an agreement with Iran that guarantees
Tehran cannot build a nuclear bomb in the future, and that it opposed a
phased easing of sanctions before an accord is reached.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius at the Maison des Océans in Paris, March 17, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/KENZO TRIBOUILLARD)
On Twitter on Friday, France’s ambassador to
the U.S. called talk about needing a deal by March 31 a “bad tactic”
that is “counterproductive and dangerous.” Gerard Araud called it an
“artificial deadline” and said negotiators should focus instead on the
next phase — reaching a complete agreement by the end of June.
In the round of talks in Switzerland this
weekend, cut short Friday because of the death of Rouhani’s mother,
Fabius called the French delegation to make sure no more concessions
were made, according to Reuters.
French diplomats have been pressing their
counterparts not to give in on key elements, such as the easing of
sanctions before serious progress is made, and arguing that the upcoming
deadline was an “artificial” date, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The P5+1, France argues, should be willing to press Tehran for a better
deal and wait, if necessary.
Kerry said the U.S. wasn’t rushing into a
pact, stressing that the latest stab at a diplomatic settlement with
Iran has gone on for 2 ½ years. “We don’t want just any deal,” he said.
“If we had, we could have announced something a long time ago.”
But, he added, decisions “don’t get any easier as time goes by.”
“It’s time to make hard decisions,” Kerry
said. “We want the right deal that would make the world, including the
United States and our closest allies and partners, safer and more
secure. And that is our test.”
One encouraging sign is the apparent narrowing
of differences on Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Tehran insists it
wants to enrich only for energy, medical and research purposes, but much
of the world fears it could turn the process toward making the fissile
core of a nuclear warhead.
As the current round wound down this week,
officials told The Associated Press that the United States and Iran are
drafting elements of a deal that commits the Iranians to a 40 percent
cut in the number of machines they use to enrich. The Obama
administration is seeking a deal that stretches the time Tehran would
need to make a nuclear weapon from the present two to three months to at
least a year.
For Washington, the stakes are high if the
talks miss the March deadline. The Obama administration has warned that a
diplomatic failure could lead to an ever tougher dilemma: Whether to
launch a military attack on Iran or allow it to reach nuclear weapons
capacity.
A more immediate challenge may be intervention
from Congress. If American lawmakers pass new economic sanctions on
Iran, the Islamic Republic could respond by busting through the interim
limits on its nuclear program it agreed to 16 months ago. Thus far, it
has stuck to that agreement.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. (Photo credit: AP/Jason DeCrow)
The negotiations are to resume on Wednesday,
leaving the two sides with just one week to meet the March 31 deadline
for agreeing on the outlines of a nuclear deal they hope will end a
12-year deadlock.
