German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized the recent letter by 47 US senators who threatened to abort or change any possible nuclear deal between the US administration and Iran.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized the recent letter by 47 US senators who threatened to abort or change any possible nuclear deal between the US administration and Iran, FNA reported.
“This is not just an issue of American domestic politics, but it affects the negotiations we are holding in Geneva,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in reaction to the US senators’ letter on Thursday.
The German foreign minister, meantime, expressed the hope that the US senators’ letter does not harm the ongoing trend of the negotiations between Iran and the world powers.
In relevant remarks on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is also the country's top negotiator in talks with powers, strongly rejected the US senators' letter, saying the message is no more than propaganda and lacks legality.
Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister responded that “in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy. It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history. This indicates that like Netanyahu, who considers peace as an existential threat, some are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content”.
Zarif expressed astonishment that some members of the US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country against their own President and administration, saying that from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.
“I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law. The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations,” Foreign Minister Zarif added.
The Iranian Foreign Minister reminded that “change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program”.
“I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with ‘the stroke of a pen,’ as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law,” he continued, and emphasized that if the current negotiation with P5+1 result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.
Zarif expressed the hope that his comments “may enrich the knowledge of the authors to recognize that according to international law, Congress may not ‘modify the terms of the agreement at any time’ as they claim, and if Congress adopts any measure to impede its implementation, it will have committed a material breach of the US obligations”.
The Foreign Minister also informed the authors that majority of US international agreements in recent decades are in fact what the signatories describe as “mere executive agreements” and not treaties ratified by the Senate.
