Special to WorldTribune.com

By Josh Rogin

If Iran strikes a deal with the West, all sanctions will be lifted very quickly and there’s nothing the U.S. Congress can do to stop it, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a New York audience Wednesday.

. . . Iran’s top diplomat assured the crowd at New York University that President Barack Obama would be compelled to stop enforcing sanctions only days after any nuclear agreement was signed and would have to figure out how to lift congressional sanctions on Iran within weeks, no matter what Congress has to say about it. He also said that any future president, even a Republican, would be compelled to stick that agreement. …

“As a foreign government, I only deal with the U.S. government. I do not deal with Congress,” Zarif said. “The responsibility of bringing that into line falls on the shoulders of the president of the United States. That’s the person with whom we are making an agreement.”

Zarif said that if there is a nuclear agreement by June 30, the negotiators’ latest self-imposed deadline, then within a few days the United Nations Security Council would pass a resolution lifting all UN sanctions and requiring Obama to stop enforcing all of the U.S. sanctions immediately. “He will have to stop implementing all the sanctions, economic and financial sanctions that have been executive order and congressional. However he does it, that’s his problem,” Zarif said. “The resolution will endorse the agreement, will terminate all previous resolutions including all sanctions, will set in place the termination of EU sanctions and the cessation of applications of all U.S. sanctions.”

The U.S. would have to endorse this resolution “whether Senator Cotton likes it or not,” Zarif said, jabbing at Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton, who initiated an open letter to the Iranian leadership promising that Congress could unravel any deal Obama makes with them.

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  Iran’s Zarif: Our deal is with Obama and all sanctions will be lifted ‘whether Sen. Cotton likes it or not’, LIFE, WorldTribune.com