Senate

Rubio: Iran deal without release of Americans ‘unacceptable’

by Jordain Carney - 07/17/15 11:01 AM ET

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) slammed the administration on Friday for agreeing to an Iran nuclear deal that didn’t include the release of three Americans currently held in the country, calling the agreement “unacceptable.”

The Florida Republican and 2016 presidential contender sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry that said he was “disturbed” their release wasn’t part of the agreement. He pressed Kerry to “use every tool at your disposal to secure their freedom.”

{mosads}”It is unacceptable that the United States has reached a final agreement with Iran while innocent Americans languish in the most brutal conditions of Iranian jail cells,” wrote Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I am disturbed by how the administration has missed an opportunity to make the freedom of these Americans a priority in your negotiations with Iran.”

The administration has repeatedly argued that the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati, as well as getting the Iranian government to help locate former FBI agent Robert Levinson, is an important but separate matter from the talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Rubio, who is running for the White House in 2016, pointed to non-nuclear parts of the deal, which include the ability to lift the arms embargo for conventional weapons after five years, saying that Iran got “non-nuclear concessions … that will aid its efforts to sow terror and instability throughout the Middle East.”

Friday’s letter is hardly the first time the Florida Republican has pressed the administration about guaranteeing the release of the Americans currently held in Iran. In a letter to Kerry in March, Rubio and 18 other Senate Republicans pushed the nation’s top diplomat to “demand their unconditional release as you engage in discussion with Iranian officials.”

Rubio and other Republicans tried to tie the release of the Americans to the review legislation passed overwhelmingly earlier this year, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

Democrats warned that if that or other “poison pill” amendments had been successful, it could have either killed the legislation or derailed the nuclear talks.

Tags Iran Iran nuclear deal Marco Rubio