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US lawmakers threaten Iran with new sanctions despite positive N.talks

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Lawmakers from both major political parties in US Congress are still threatening Iran with new sanctions as ongoing nuclear talks in Geneva have appeared to progress.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany held two days of talks over Tehran’s nuclear energy program in Geneva on Thursday and Friday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry headed to Geneva on Friday to attend trilateral talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

The two sides described the negotiations as “productive” and expressed optimism that a draft deal would be reached by the end of the ongoing round of talks, which is set to continue on Saturday.

Shortly after Kerry headed to Geneva and just before he attended the trilateral talks, Israeli Prime Minister said a possible deal between the two sides was “a very, very bad deal.” The White House was quick to respond, saying it was “premature” to criticize a deal being discussed in Geneva over Iran’s nuclear energy program.

However, US lawmakers are considering new sanctions on Iran despite the progress in nuclear talks.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, the chairman of the US Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) had asked him to go ahead with the consideration of a new round of sanctions against Iran after the nuclear talks in Geneva end.

“I talked to Harry Reid about it yesterday and he wants to mark up,” said Johnson.

The new anti-Iran sanctions which the Senate Banking Committee has been asked to “mark up” were passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in July. The House bill seeks to cut Iran’s oil exports by one million barrels a day for the next year and includes threats of military force against Iran.

If the Senate Banking Committee decides to go ahead with the mark-up, the bill will move one step closer to a full Senate vote.

“I just don’t understand a negotiating posture that suggests that we should stop pursuing a course of action that at least brought Iran to the table while they continue to enrich,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), an architect of Iran sanctions who is also a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told Reuters.

Prior to the ongoing nuclear talks in Geneva, a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington was ready to propose a “phased approach” that would reportedly include “limited sanctions relief.”

However, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) told The Daily Beast in an interview on Wednesday that US lawmakers would not allow the Obama administration to ease the sanctions against Iran.

“We’ve crafted an amendment to freeze the administration in and make it so they are unable to reduce the sanctions unless certain things occur,” the Republican senator said.

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