FOREIGN POLICY/IRAN/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump will announce on Friday [10-13-17] that he won’t certify that Iran is complying with the 2015 nuclear agreement and will ask Congress to set trigger points that would reinstate sanctions on Tehran, according to senior officials.
The Trump administration also wants to initiate talks with European partners to address key concerns, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters ahead of Mr. Trump’s speech, in which officials said the president will lay out his approach to the deal and to confronting what he views as Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the Middle East.
Two key areas for the talks will be Iran’s ballistic missile program and ‘sunset clauses’ in the nuclear deal allow restrictions to expire at various times, Mr. Tillerson said…
He said discussions for ‘a successor deal’ would begin after Congress moves to amend the 2015 oversight legislation, known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, though it is unclear if the Trump administration and its allies on the Hill can muster enough support to do that,’I don’t want to suggest to you that this is a slam dunk up there on the Hill, we know it’s not,’ Mr. Tillerson said. ‘Once that decision is made, that will guide then our diplomatic engagement.’
The process to be outlined by Mr. Trump is likely to require time and painstaking negotiations. Mr. Tillerson said he hoped Congress would amend the legislation before Mr. Trump next faces another certification deadline in January.
Mr. Tillerson said Mr. Trump will say he is unable to certify under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement review act that the sanctions relief Iran receives is proportionate to the benefit the U.S. is seeing from the dral.”
-Felicia Schwartz, “Trump Won’t Certify Iran Is Complying With Nuclear Deal, Seeks Trigger Points for Sanctions,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 13, 2017 11:30am