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QUESTION: The Administration has made more progress on thawing the relationship with longtime enemy Iran and its newly elected President Hassan Rouhani. To the objections of many in Congress, the Obama Administration recently negotiated a short-term deal that would freeze parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for limited relief from sanctions.

Let’s talk about the Iranians. The Iranians are telling their public that this deal is not that big a deal, what they’ve agreed to do, that they could undo it within a day. Rouhani went to Davos and basically said we’re open for business in Iran. The French, the Turks, they have been sending – it’s not trade missions, but they have almost been sending trade missions looking to do more business. Have we been played?

SECRETARY KERRY: Not in the least, not even by a close margin. In fact, I think the Iranians naturally are going to go home and say what you’ve just said.

QUESTION: Sure. But to the world and the Turks and the French?

SECRETARY KERRY: No, Iran is not open for business, and Iran knows it’s not open for business. We have announced increased sanctions against particular companies since this agreement was reached. We have told the Iranians that we will continue to apply the sanctions. And we have made it clear to every other country that the sanctions regime remains in place. So while the French may send some business people over there, they’re not able to contravene the sanctions. They will be sanctioned if they do, and they know it. And we’ve put them on notice.

But nobody should doubt for an instant that the United States is prepared to enforce the sanctions that exist, and all of our allies are in agreement that those sanctions are staying in place until or unless there is a deal.

QUESTION: Do you trust Rouhani?

SECRETARY KERRY: It’s not a matter of trust. There’s nothing that we’re doing is based on trust. Everything that we’re doing is based on verification, on specific steps.

Let me give you – let me be very specific with the American people and the world who listen to CNN about what this agreement does. This agreement takes Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent uranium, and they have to reduce it to zero. They have to get rid of it. They’re not allowed to grow their 3.5 percent stockpile of uranium, not at all. They cannot do anything except replace an existing centrifuge. They can’t put in new centrifuges. They have to literally stop the construction of their heavy water reactor. They have to allow inspection of the Fordow underground facility and of the Natanz nuclear plant. They didn’t have to do that before. Now we have people in there every single day. We’ve actually frozen their program in place and have rolled it back to the degree that they’re destroying some of their stockpile.

So I can absolutely sit here and look you in the eye, and I’ve looked Prime Minister Netanyahu in the eye and said I believe Israel and the region are safer today than they were before we made this agreement, because the program is stopped and rolled back and we have greater insight and accountability into the program.

QUESTION: You’re a former senator. A lot of your colleagues are very skeptical of this deal. They want more sanctions on Iran. Are they just wrong?

SECRETARY KERRY: I believe it’s a mistake now to break faith with a negotiating process when you’re in the middle of the process. The United States of America agreed, together with our P5+1 allies – with Russia, China, France, Great Britain, Germany – all of them agreed that during the time we’re negotiating we would not increase sanctions.

Now our word has to mean something too. But we don’t want to break our word in the middle of the negotiations. We also have other alternatives available to us. We’ve lost nothing off the table, but we want to give diplomacy a chance, and we think that’s worthwhile.

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