Obama 'Embarrassed' for Iran Letter Signatories
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربيةU.S. President Barack Obama said he was "embarrassed" for Republicans who signed a controversial letter warning Iran's leaders about reaching a nuclear deal with the White House.
"I am embarrassed for them," Obama said in an interview with Vice media, which is expected to be released Monday.
"For them to address a letter to the Ayatollah who, they claim, is our mortal enemy and their basic argument to them is: don't deal with our president because you can't trust him to follow through on an agreement. It's close to unprecedented."
Forty-seven Senate Republicans -- including several potential 2016 presidential candidates -- signed the open letter to Iran's supreme leader published earlier this month.
Republicans warned any deal agreed before Obama leaves office in 2017 is "nothing more than an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei."
"The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," they added.
With a March deadline looming, negotiators are furiously working to agree on a deal that would curb Iran's nuclear program in return for reducing Western sanctions.
A new round of talks between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is due to take place in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15.
It is this feeling embarrassment for others who rock the boat that shows someone to be a real believer in the fictitiousness of life: that this is all a skit, and that the worst thing you can do is blow your lines. Before Obama made his fateful address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, according to him, his wife and chief legal counsel, Michelle, told him, "Just don't screw it up, buddy."