An advisor to the Majlis speaker said on Thursday that parliament should approve any final nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers.
Hossein Sheikholeslam said, "According to the Constitution, any long-term agreement such as a final nuclear deal must be approved by parliament," the Fars news agency reported.
His comments came amid efforts by Republicans at the US Congress to prevent the White House from bypassing the lawmakers and using its executive powers to roll back anti-Iran sanctions under a prospective nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany).
Failure to Force Vote
As part of those efforts, a couple of Republican lawmakers on Thursday tried to force a vote in the US Senate on a bill which would impose new sanctions on Iran if negotiators failed to reach what they see as an acceptable nuclear deal by the November 24 deadline for a long-term settlement, but they failed to secure sufficient support to push through their proposal.
Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker had asked for unanimous consent on the proposed "Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act of 2014", Reuters reported.
If the bill was approved, it would give Congress 15 days after an agreement is reached to review the pact and let legislators cut off funding to implement it if they passed a resolution of disapproval or the plan was not submitted for lawmakers' approval.
In addition, it would reinstate sanctions if Iran failed to comply with the terms of an agreement. Republicans won the November 4 congressional elections, which gave the party control of the Senate and increased its majority in the House of Representatives.
Analysts speculate that the change of leadership at the Senate and the GOP’s control over the House could make it harder for the Democratic administration to win Congress's support on Iran and that Republicans may increase their efforts to obstruct such a deal by seeking to impose new anti-Iran sanctions and even vote to rescind a final nuclear agreement after the end of Obama’s term.
