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QUESTION: So Menendez and Kirk have introduced a bill to institute sanctions if a broader deal isn’t reached. The State Department has urged against this kind of action. Is it the position of the State Department that if such a bill were to pass, the deal – interim deal would be off?

MS. HARF: Right. Let me make a few points on this – I think this is very important – state very clearly that we strongly oppose the action taken by these members of Congress. It directly contradicts the Administration’s work to resolve the concerns about the Iranian nuclear program peacefully. And on top of that, we believe it’s unnecessary. This legislation does not provide the President and the negotiating team with the flexibility to reach a diplomatic agreement with Iran. And if Congress passes this bill, which is an if at this point, it would be proactively taking an action that would undermine American diplomacy and make a peaceful resolution to this issue less possible. I hear – we hear a lot from the Hill about how they want to resolve this peacefully. What we need to see – more than words, we need to see actions to back that up. We don’t believe this one does.

QUESTION: So you’ve gone to the Hill many times to tell them, don’t do this. Specifically, you’ve said even if it’s a conditioned sanction --

MS. HARF: Absolutely.

QUESTION: -- it’s going to erode support for international sanctions. Given that you’ve told them so many times, please don’t do this, it’s going to hurt the chances of anything getting worked out, is this a bad sign for State’s relationship with the Hill?

MS. HARF: Well, I’d make a few points. We’ve made very clear to members of the Senate and others why we believe this would hurt our negotiating strategy. It appears in this case with the introduction of this legislation that they’ve chosen to ignore the assessment of our negotiators and also our intelligence community, which has said that additional sanctions would make this harder. I can actually get the exact language if you give me a second to pull it up. The intelligence community’s December 10th, 2013 assessment states that, quote, “New sanctions would undermine the prospects for a successful comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.”

A couple points on the Hill, though. There is broad support in Congress for resolving this issue diplomatically. A number of prominent Democratic and Independent senators have publicly expressed their opposition to new sanctions legislation while negotiations are ongoing, among them, chairman of the Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein, chairman of Armed Services Carl Levin, chairman of the Banking Committee Senator Johnson. There’s a host of others that have publicly come out and said we need to give our negotiators the best chance to succeed. So I would take notion with the issue that Congress is speaking with one voice on this. Certainly, there are many members of Congress who don’t believe we should impose new sanctions now.

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QUESTION: Marie, just to play devil’s advocate on this, why wouldn’t this legislation just add more fuel to the fire and motivate Iran to (a) follow through on the agreement that was made in Geneva and (b) make a final agreement?

MS. HARF: Well, for a couple reasons. We do know that sanctions we’ve put in place, both through Congress and also with the international community, have gotten us to this point. They were always designed to change the calculus on the Iranian side to get them back to the table and work towards a diplomatic solution. But there’s a couple reasons why now isn’t the right time.

First, it would divide the international community. We went around the world saying we were putting sanctions in place not for the purpose of sanctions per se but to get us to a diplomatic solution. If we look like to our partners we weren’t telling the truth, we weren’t negotiating in good faith, this agreement we have signed onto with the P5+1, it says very clearly no new sanctions while we negotiate, how can we ask other people to stand by agreements we’re not ourselves willing to stand by?

Also, it could drive the Iranians to take a harder line. They have their own domestic political situation there; and if we are seen as being an intransigent party or not sincerely open to negotiations, it could urge their folks to take a harder line. And the worst-case scenario would be ending negotiations. So why take the risk with something that doesn’t even go into effect just to prove a point, which, if there’s even a small chance it could blow up, the best chance we have to resolve this diplomatically, why would you take that chance if you’re a member of Congress who’s repeatedly said you want to solve this diplomatically? It just defies logic.

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