against isis in iraq. in a few hours vice president biden will deliver a major address on the future of that fight. on how to create a moirn collusive iraqi government ahead of iraqi prmt abadie s visit to washington next week. his first since becomes prime minister. in tehran in a televised speech earlier today, row rouhani refused to sign the deal unless all sanctions are lifted. joining us iraq s ambassador to the united states, thank you for being with us mr. ambassador. start with this this morning. words of rehounie seen as a tough bargains stance making it tough for the president s sell to congress. so what s your take on his comments this morning on refusing to endorse that nuclear agreement? well we in iraq agree with the deal. we think it will bring tension down in the region and we think what the initial agreements are, all positive signs, there is more work to do across both
and a deadline furiously approaches senior international correspondent nic robertson is live in switzerland with more. what do we know, nic? yeah good morning, alisyn. about an hour ago, secretary kerry went into his first meeting of the day with the iranian foreign minister zarif, he offered sincere condolences to the iranian negotiators on the death of iranian president row rouhani s mother. the president has left to go back to iran. obviously that puts a slight question mark over where the talks go from here. but the talks are currently under way at the moment. president obama s message to the iranian people if you will going over the head of the politicians here trying to hammer out the deal telling people it s time to make a choice an important choice for the iranians. iran s leaders have a choice between two paths. if they cannot agree do a
apparently he s not authorized to shake hands with the president of the united states, which is fine with me. maybe not. so when the iranians say that it s too complicated to shake president obama s hand they just didn t have time. the iranians said rouhani said to you today he basically didn t have time. of course they could have done it if they wanted to do it. but the press all day today they had said it s too complicated is not an iranian quote? the americans said that. in iran there was a very right wing newspaper, hard linus paper who said you shouldn t do it. but certainly american officials were a really complicated internal political fight going on. and this is what gives me pause. the revolutionary guard is really what runs the economy in iran. and they are really a tool of the ayatollah khomeini who s very conservative. it s hard to figure out what s going on.
they re not going to give up what they call their rights under the npg, that is the right tone richment. on the other hand, another has the coercive method actually worked. yes, it has hurt economically in the sanctions most definitely have hurt. but it hasn t caused them to stop this program. so what do you think is the cause post united states? the u.s. doesn t want to go to war again, does it? i don t think we do. but i think the course needs to be a long, broad, patient one. sanctions may or may not work, but sanctions are hurting the regime. they are isolating iran. i think they re in some political trouble at home. not deep political trouble but some political trouble. instead of taking off all that pressure and saying, oh, well, now you re ready to they aren t even ready to talk to us. we go chasing after handshake with rouhani and he says he s not ready for it? i specifically asked him whether he s authorized to talk, whether the iranian government is authorized to talk o
the united states should not have been seeking a meeting with him. i m not even sure we d have accepted one if he asked for it. but the message that it sends to our supposed friends in syria who are fighting against his own revolutionary guards who are there helping assad. i think we should talk. but i don t think we should give an inch. let me be clear. i didn t say we shouldn t talk. i think secretary kerry should talk. he should talk frankly with row rouhani. secretary wolfowitz and howard dean, you really do have to come up with an alternative answer. if you re not going to go to war and not going to go after regime change which president obama declared the u.s. was not going