Obama Will Sign Measure Allowing Iran Deal to Be Reviewed

United States President Barack Obama announced on Friday a measure allowing the U.S. Congress to review a deal that concerns the nuclear program of Iran was a compromise he had planned to sign and expressed confidence it would not do anything to derail discussions with Tehran.

In a news conference at the White House Obama and fellow Democrats said, they had agreed to protect the measure from any poison pills amendments tilting it toward attempting to kill the agreement with Iran.

On Tuesday, the White House announced it would sign the measure and has reassured its negotiating partners. Talks have been aimed at curbing the nuclear program of Iran in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

Obama said that assuming the bill that lands on his desk is what the Democratic Senators agreed to, he will sign it.

After initially balking at intervention by Congress, Obama conceded that U.S. lawmakers would have sufficient power to have the agreement reviewed after both Democrats and Republicans drafted a rare compromise measure.

There were concerns in the White House that the measure would undermine efforts that had been reached with Iran and the agreement would not be signed by June 30. On April 2, the world powers and Iran reached a framework agreement.

The U.S. and Iran differ on how quickly the sanctions would be taken away if the agreement were reached. Iran wants relief immediately but the Obama administration insists that sanctions must be lifted gradually.

Obama played the difference down, saying the big concern is making sure if Iran does not abide by the agreement, the U.S. does not have to jump through too many hoops to reinstate the sanctions.

Regarding Russia’s plans to have a missile defense system delivered to Iran, which had been put on hold following a request from the U.S., Obama said, he was not surprised given the amount of deterioration in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia and the fact their economy was under a great strain and the sale of the defense system was quite substantial.