Post date: Nov 24, 2013 3:36:57 PM
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says a nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers makes the world safer for Middle East nations and Israel.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (NOVEMBER 24, 2013) (REUTERS) - An agreement between Iran and major powers would make it harder for Iran to make a dash to build a nuclear weapon and would make Israel and other U.S. allies safer, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday (November 24).
Iran and six world powers reached a breakthrough deal early on Sunday to curb Tehran's nuclear programme in exchange for limited sanctions relief, in what could be the first sign of an emerging rapprochement between the Islamic state and the West."This first step, I want to emphasize actually rolls back the programme from where it is today, enlarges the break out time which would not have occurred unless this agreement existed. It will make our partners in the regions safer. It will make our ally Israel safer," Kerry told journalists inGeneva in the early hours of Sunday morning shortly after the agreement was struck.
Kerry also said that while U.S. President Barack Obama would not take the possible use of force against Iran off the table, he believed it was necessary to first exhaust diplomacy.
"Well President Obama and I do not share a belief that war is a permanent solution and it should never be the first option. Instead that particular option involves enormous risks in many different ways and as President Obama has often said, while that option remains available to us, and the president will not take it off the table, he believes that that can only be entertained after we have made every effort to resolve a dispute through diplomacy barring some immediate emergency that requires a different response," Kerry said.
Addressing one of the most contentious issues in the 10-year nuclear standoff, Kerry said that the deal does not include any recognition of an Iranian "right" to enrich uranium.
"This first step does not say that Iran has a right to enrichment, no matter what interpretive comments are made, it is not in this document, there is no right to enrich within the four corners of the NPT (Non Proliferation Treatment))and this document does not do that," he said.
Aimed at ending a dangerous standoff, the agreement between Iran and the United States, France,Germany, Britain, China and Russia was clinched after more than four days of tortuous negotiations in Geneva.