Senate Republican leader backs off vote on Iran bill

The Republican leader of the US Senate has postponed a vote on legislation that would require Congress to review any nuclear deal with Iran.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, no longer plans to put the bill up for a vote next week, his spokesman said on Thursday, citing Democratic opposition to a vote before a July 1 deadline for a nuclear agreement with Tehran.

"It is clear that Senate Democrats will filibuster their own bill — a bill they rushed to introduce before the White House cut a deal with Iran," Don Stewart said in an email to the congressional newspaper, The Hill.

McConnell’s decision came less than a day after he announced that the upper chamber would hold a procedural vote next Tuesday on the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015.

The legislation would also ban the White House from lifting any sanctions for a period of 60 days while Congress could hold hearings and debate the deal.

Senator Harry Reid, the leader of the minority Democrats, welcomed McConnell’s decision to delay the vote.

"As leaders we should seek to build and cultivate bipartisan support for Israel, not try to score cheap political points," he said in a statement. "Democrats and Republicans joined together to ask Senator McConnell to reconsider his decision to rush this bill to the floor. ...He did the right thing by heeding their advice."

The legislation lost support of many Democrats who co-sponsored the bill after the Republican leadership announced they were planning to move the measure forward while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still in Washington for his address to Congress.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that the United States and other countries involved in nuclear negotiations with Iran will not "be distracted by external factors or politics."

Kerry made the remarks in the Swiss city of Montreux, where he held three days of “intense” talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, hours after Netanyahu warned against “a very bad deal” with Iran.

“We’ve been told for over a year that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well this is a bad deal, a very bad deal. We’re better off without it,” the Israeli premier told members of Congress Tuesday.

“The alternative to this deal is a much better deal. A better deal that doesn't leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure and such a short breakout point,” he added.

US President Barack Obama said he did not watch the prime minister’s address, but that he read the transcript and it contained "nothing new."

Iran and the P5+1 group of  states – the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany –  are holding negotiations to narrow their differences on outstanding issues related to Tehran's nuclear program ahead of the July 1 deadline for the final agreement.

"We've made some progress from where we were and important choices need to be made," Kerry said after the talks with his Iranian counterpart.

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