The US Senate Banking Committee will move ahead with a package of tough new sanctions on Iran after the negotiating session over its nuclear programme ends in Geneva today, the committee’s chairman said yesterday.
Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told him to go ahead with the mark-up – or consideration – of the Bill, a step towards bringing it to the full Senate for a vote.
“We’ll wait until the Geneva meeting is over with, but I talked to Harry Reid about it yesterday and he wants to mark up,” Johnson said outside the Senate chamber.
He said the date of the mark-up, during which senators present amendments to the legislation and vote whether to send it to the full Senate, had not been determined as of yesterday.
President Barack Obama’s administration has been pushing Congress to hold off on more sanctions against Iran to let the delicate diplomatic talks over Tehran’s nuclear programme unfold.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Geneva yesterday that it and six world powers were making progress in the talks, although the discussions were “tough.”
And in Washington yesterday, a White House spokesman said the powers negotiating with Iran would consider a limited pullback of sanctions in exchange for clear evidence that Tehran is taking steps to stop its nuclear programme from advancing.
But Congress tends to take a harder line on Iran than the administration. Many lawmakers, including several of Obama’s fellow Democrats, believe that tough sanctions brought Tehran to the negotiating table and insist that more are needed to discourage it from developing a nuclear bomb. Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.
Sanctions imposed last year by Washington and the European Union have combined to slash Iran’s oil exports by roughly 1 million barrels a day, depriving Tehran of billions of dollars of income and driving up inflation and unemployment.
The Republican-led House of Representatives passed its version of a stiffer sanctions Bill in July. But the Senate, where Democrats control a majority of the seats, put off moving ahead with its Bill after the administration asked for more time to pursue the talks.
The House Bill among other things seeks to slash Iran’s oil exports to nearly zero. The Senate bill has been widely expected to be less stringent.
The timing issue became more complicated after a handful of senators, including Republican Mark Kirk, a banking panel member, said they might go ahead with a sanctions package even if the banking committee held off.
Kirk and a few other Republicans said they were considering introducing a stiffer package of Iran sanctions as an amendment to a defence authorization Bill that is expected to be debated in the Senate during the week of November 18.