Top German diplomat says GOP letter to Iran could sink talks
Joining critical US officials, foreign minister Steinmeier says missive by Republican senators 'not very helpful'
WASHINGTON — German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday criticized a letter sent earlier this week by Senate Republicans to Iran’s leaders, telling them that any nuclear deal may not survive the Obama administration.
Steinmeier, speaking to reporters while in Washington for an official visit, said the letter from 47 Republican senators is “not very helpful” to ongoing negotiations, which he says are in a “delicate phase” as an end-of-March deadline approaches for agreeing to a framework accord.
“This is not just an issue of American domestic politics, but it affects the negotiations we are holding in Geneva,” Steinmeier said.
“Obviously, mistrust is growing on … the Iranian side if we are really serious with the negotiations,” he said.
Steinmeier added it would be good “if the letter of the 47 senators no longer causes any disturbance in the negotiations.”
Germany is among the five countries attempting with the US to negotiate a deal with Iran. Talks resume next week in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The letter, written by freshman Senator Tom Cotton, was signed by 46 of his Senate colleagues, including three potential 2016 presidential candidates, and belatedly by a fourth, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.
Styled as a US civics lesson, the letter noted that any deal struck is nonbinding and whoever is elected to succeed President Barack Obama could nullify it.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the letter a sign of “the collapse of political ethics and the US system’s internal disintegration,” according to the official IRNA news agency. It was the first reaction to the letter by Khamenei, who has the final say over all major policies. His representative at the talks, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had already dismissed the letter as a propaganda ploy.
Steinmeier met Wednesday with Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry denounced the letter in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as an attempt to sabotage the talks and said he reacted with “utter disbelief” that senators would try to undermine the talks.