Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Thursday in a letter to President Obama that any effort to get the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to approve a nuclear deal with Iran would be “a direct affront to the American people.”
The letter comes a day after Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers any deal reached with Iran to roll back its nuclear program that Congress would not be able to modify would not be “legally binding.”
“We’re not negotiating a, quote, ‘legally binding plan.’ We’re negotiating a plan that will have in it a capacity for enforcement. We don’t even have diplomatic relations with Iran right now,” Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
{mosads}Kerry’s comments came in response to a letter signed by 47 Senate Republicans warning Iran that any deal it makes could be annulled by the next president and be modified by Congress.
Corker said reports that the administration is contemplating taking the agreement to the UNSC to make it internationally binding while issuing a veto threat on his bill that would allow Congress to approve the deal would also “undermine Congress’s appropriate role.”
“Please advise us as to whether you are considering going to the United Nations Security Council without coming to Congress first,” Corker said in the March 12 letter.
Corker and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) introduced last month a bill that would require any deal reached with Iran to be submitted to Congress for review before sanctions could be waived or suspended.
The White House issued a veto threat several days after it was introduced, saying it would complicate negotiations that are due to end June 30.
Corker said in the letter that there is “significant and growing” bipartisan support for that bill.