Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday briefly detailed how Iranian diplomats have expressed hope that the nuclear deal, if implemented, could foster broader bilateral cooperation between the US and Iran.
Kerry made the remarks at a Thomson Reuters forum in Manhattan, offering insight on an aspect of the multilateral agreement that many have asked about—the possibility of normalization of relations between Washington and Tehran.
“But I’m telling you this, given the experience that I’ve had for the last several years negotiating with them, they said to me, ‘If we can get this deal done, then we’re ready to sit down and talk about the regional issues and we may be able to work things in different places,’” Kerry said.
He then went on to discuss how the foreign policy of Iran’s president and its foreign minister, Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, appears to be lending this offer some heft.
“I just got a message today from my counterpart from Iran. He’s in Beirut meeting with the government officials there. You know where he was last weekend? He was in Kuwait and in Qatar. He’s reaching out to those countries,” Kerry said.
“Are we going to turn our backs on the possibility that Rouhani and Zarif might, in fact, want to try to have a different–I don’t know the answer,” he said. “But I know we’ve got ample amount of time here within which we can put all of that to the test. And we owe it to the world to try to put it to the test.”
Kerry stressed a point that the administration has repeatedly flogged throughout negotiations and since: the White House isn’t making any assumptions about Iran’s behavior. But, he said, American envoys “hope that Iran would change.”
“It would be diplomatic malpractice not to go out and try to explore that possibility, and we’ll do so with our eyes wide open.”
Kerry at one point seemed to indicate that American intelligence officials themselves believe negotiations have kept a lid on covert Iranian activities in the region.
“I just would like very much for members to take the time to look at the latest intel that has been coming in over the past year, really, and to factor that into their thinking about what the possibilities are here,” he said, when asked how lawmakers should consider the deal before voting on it. “And I regret I can’t go into it here, but I think it’s a very important part of any analysis about the [Revolutionary Guards], about Iran, about the – where things may or may not be heading.”
Earlier this month after meetings in Qatar, Kerry made similar comments on relations between Iran and the US and its regional allies, saying that “everybody can hope that perhaps there will be a turning of the page, but we are preparing for the possibility that that may not happen.”
A wider warming of relations between European countries and Iran appears to have already occurred.
Last month, the European Union’s head envoy, Federica Mogherini, visited Tehran, where she said the nuclear deal will “pave the ground for wider cooperation between Iran and the West.” Mogherini was there to start discussions on holding what Zarif described as “high-level talks” on energy concerns, “human rights, confronting terrorism and regional issues.”
The day after Mogherini departed the Iranian capital, Iranian officials hosted French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for discussions. Fabius invited Rouhani to Paris and broached the idea of a visit to Tehran by French businesspeople this autumn.
The idea of an investment-minded French visit came roughly two weeks after Germany’s economy minister, Sigmar Gabriel, led an official trip to Iran.
“Germany has more business ties with Iran than any other EU nation, and while economic sanctions have hindered the relationship, Berlin still exported goods worth nearly 2.4 billion euros to Iran last year,” Al-Jazeera noted in late July. “Deutsche Bank recently forecast” that the Iran deal could pave the way for additional 2 billion euros if exports reach their 2005 levels, the peak before a decade of sanctions against Iran.”
In March, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the multilateral nuclear talks with the US were “on the nuclear issue and nothing else.”
Read a full transcript of Sec. Kerry’s remarks here.
