by Yoni Hersch, Israel Hayom Staff and AP
Hat tip: Jean-Charles Bensoussan
Translation of speech given by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in June reveals U.S. began secret nuclear talks with Iranian regime when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still president • New poll: Only 27% of Americans think Congress should approve nuclear deal.
U.S. President Barack Obama
plays golf while on vacation, Monday
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Photo credit: AP  |
The U.S. government began secret nuclear talks
with the Iranian regime in 2011, when Holocaust-denying firebrand
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still president, rather than after supposed
"moderate" Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013, as the Obama
administration has claimed. This revelation was made public by Iranian
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a speech delivered on June 23.
According to a translation of the speech
published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Khamenei said,
"The issue of negotiating with the Americans is related to the term of
the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a
mediator to Tehran to request talks. At the time, a respected regional
figure came to me as a mediator [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos bin
Said Al Said] and explicitly said that U.S. President [Barack Obama] had
asked him to come to Tehran and present an American request for
negotiations. The Americans told this mediator: 'We want to solve the
nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing
Iran as a nuclear power.' I told that mediator that I did not trust the
Americans and their words, but after he insisted, I agreed to reexamine
this topic, and negotiations began."
In a July 7 interview translated by MEMRI,
Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam, an adviser to Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali
Larijani, said that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had relayed a
letter to the Iranian regime recognizing Iran's enrichment rights.
"We came to the [secret] negotiations [with
the U.S.] after Kerry wrote a letter and sent it to us via Oman, stating
that America officially recognizes Iran's rights regarding the [nuclear
fuel] enrichment cycle," he said. "Then there were two meetings in Oman
between the [Iranian and U.S.] deputy foreign ministers, and after
those, Sultan Qaboos was dispatched by Obama to Khamenei with Kerry's
letter. Khamenei told him: 'I don't trust them.' Sultan Qaboos said:
'Trust them one more time.' On this basis the negotiations began, and
not on the basis of sanctions, as they [the Americans] claim in their
propaganda."
Meanwhile, a new poll published on Monday
showed increasing skepticism among Americans about the nuclear deal with
Iran. According to the Monmouth University poll, 41% of Americans
believe Iran got the better end of the deal, while only 14% think the
U.S. did.
Overall, only 27% of Americans believe Congress should approve the deal, the poll found.
In Israel on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu met with a visiting delegation of Democratic members of
Congress. While Netanyahu did not explicitly tell the visitors how they
should vote on the deal, members of the delegation said it was clear
that Netanyahu hopes they vote against it.
Democratic House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer
told Haaretz, "[Netanyahu] was respectful and expressed his position in a
moderate, thoughtful and organized way."
Hoyer was quoted as saying that Netanyahu told
the delegation that the agreement with Iran "is a bad deal that will
allow Iran to have a path to a nuclear bomb in 13 years."
President Reuven Rivlin was scheduled to host
on Tuesday a visiting delegation of Republican members of Congress,
headed by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan
Shapiro told Army Radio that despite their disagreements on the matter,
the U.S. and Israel should begin preparing for the day after the deal.
"Within two months, after Congress completes
its process, we will start implementing the agreement," Shapiro said.
"When the sun shines on that day, we will still be close allies who are
committed to each other."
Shapiro went on to say, "Everyone has a right
to say what they think about the deal, but there are more productive
things to do than just argue about it."
Later on Monday, Foreign Ministry Director
General Dore Gold told Army Radio, "We talk [with the U.S.] all the time
about bilateral issues that are important to both countries. We're
focusing right now on the implications of the deal. We will move on to
the next steps as soon as we see which reality we're living in."
Also on Monday, Obama said Republicans are
reflexively opposing the Iran nuclear deal because his name is on it,
brushing off criticism from a majority in Congress.
Ahead of next month's deadline for a vote that
could derail the agreement, Obama argued in two interviews released
Monday that solid Republican opposition was unsurprising. He cited
Republicans' resistance to his health care law and budget proposals as
evidence that their recent hostility had nothing to do with what's in
the deal.
"Unfortunately, a large portion of the
Republican Party, if not a near unanimous portion of Republican
representatives, are going to be opposed to anything that I do," Obama
told NPR News.
That hasn't always been the case.
In June, Republicans drove legislation through
that gave Obama expanded authority to negotiate trade deals with Europe
and Asia, even as many in Obama's own Democratic party deserted him.
Many Republicans also have shown a willingness to work with Obama on
criminal justice matters and on military spending that exceeds caps
imposed by both parties.
On the Iran deal, Obama has tried to discredit
the opposition and attract as much Democratic support as possible
before Congress votes on the agreement roughly a month from now. The
White House has acknowledged that Congress probably will pass
legislation opposing the deal, which Obama will veto. Obama's goal is to
secure enough Democratic votes to prevent Congress from overriding his
veto.
So far, only 34 members of the House of
Representatives, all Democrats, have announced support, along with 17
Democratic senators. Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz and Minnesota Sen. Amy
Klobuchar on Monday became the latest to side with Obama. It takes a
two-thirds vote of the 435 House members and 100 senators to override a
presidential veto.
A blow came last week when New York Sen. Chuck
Schumer, in line to be the top Democrat in the Senate, announced his
opposition. Obama's interviews were recorded before Schumer's
announcement, but were released Monday as the White House tried to keep
the president's voice in the debate during the August lull. Lawmakers
have left Washington for their annual congressional recess, and Obama is
on the island of Martha's Vineyard off Massachusetts for his family
vacation.
In an interview with online news site Mic,
Obama shifted his focus to young people, including some in Iran and
Israel who posed questions to the president via video.
Asked by a 22-year-old woman in Iran why Obama
had to hurt the Iranian people with harsh economic penalties to get a
deal, Obama said his hand was forced because his outreach to Khamenei
went unrequited while the U.S. caught Iran secretly enriching uranium at
its Fordo facility.
"Unfortunately we didn't have a better way of
doing this," Obama said. "What we had to do was to more severely enforce
sanctions so that Iran had greater incentive to come to the table and
negotiate."
Also Monday, the White House said Obama will host a nuclear security summit in late March and early April 2016 in Washington.
Yoni Hersch, Israel Hayom Staff and AP
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=27493&hp=1
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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