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Eurozone Leaders Agree on Greek Bailout Plan; Iran Deadline Looms; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 13, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: after nearly two years of painstaking diplomacy and an excruciating past few days here in

Austria trying to seal a nuclear deal Iran's foreign minister engages in some balcony diplomacy from that building behind me, moving his head, "no,"

there will be no announcement tonight.

While in Brussels, Greece and its creditors have reached a painful bailout deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After 17 hours of negotiations, we have finally reached it. No one can say that we haven't agreements.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour live in Vienna. And so here the long wait continues

for a historic deal on Iran's nuclear program. They are this close, we're told.

But first to a deal that has been done 1,000 kilometers away in Brussels. Europe will keep Greece in the union. After the longest continuous E.U.

summit on record, Eurozone leaders reached a deal for a third and desperately needed bailout for Greece, which is worth as much as $96

billion over the next three years.

Athens will need to make profound changes to pensions and labor rules and billions of dollars of Greek public assets will need to be sold off to

repay the debt. The Greek parliament has until Wednesday to approve those reforms. For now, E.U. leaders have praised the deal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And joining me now, George Katrougalos, the Greek minister for administrative reform, live from Athens.

Sir, welcome to the program. Let me first ask you then, this is pretty much of an about-face for Prime Minister Tsipras. He is now accepting

very, very harsh terms.

Can the reforms be approved by the parliament by Wednesday?

GEORGE KATROUGALOS, THE GREEK MINISTER FOR ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM: It was very unequal but for our prime minister. It was not just about Greece.

Quite the opposite. Two different visions of Europe working for each other, Europe of austerity versus Europe, let's say, faithful to its

historical tradition associated modern. And another major political issue, democracy, democracy at the level of the European Union that really did not

succeed.

With regard to the outcome, it is harsh. It is really painful. But it is the least evil. We had to accept it in order to avoid sudden death for our

economy due to the continuation of the closure of the banks.

But I must tell you that this decision of the ECB not to increase the liquidity and so to keep our economy in limbo was not a necessary decision.

It was more a deliberate political action in order to exert pressure to us because as you know, the Greek banks (INAUDIBLE) what was happening with

the idea, so the Cypriot ones (ph), did not help us solve this problem but just a liquidity one.

Easily resolved with an injection of liquidity by the ECB. I hope that the --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: So, Mr. Katrougalos -- yes?

KATROUGALOS: -- we are going to pass exactly because they are necessary.

AMANPOUR: Well, that's --

KATROUGALOS: And exactly because --

AMANPOUR: -- yes, that's what I was going to ask you.

KATROUGALOS: Sorry, (INAUDIBLE)?

It is a prerequisite for us --

AMANPOUR: You go ahead.

KATROUGALOS: -- to conserve our unity as a government, as that party, exactly because we have two different fronts, two different mandates. The

one is certainly the European way of our economy. But we have a second equally important mandate to break with the system of the oligarchs, to

break with this system of --

AMANPOUR: OK.

KATROUGALOS: -- alliance of economic and political elite. In order to be successful, we must be united.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Katrougalos, let me ask you, that's one thing for the parliament. You seem to indicate you think these very painful reforms will

be approved.

But what about the people? There is a demonstration behind you which is quite loud and angry. They don't like these terms. In fact, they voted

against this kind of harshness in the referendum. And now the prime minister is signing onto them. This is what he said earlier today. Just

listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXIS TSIPRAS, GREEK PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The great majority of Greek people will support this effort to return to growth as

they will recognize that we fought a righteous battle to the end.

[14:05:00]

TSIPRAS (through translator): We negotiated throughout the night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So what do you say to the Greek people who the vast majority rejected less harsh terms than they're being delivered right now?

What will they say to you?

KATROUGALOS: The people are very right to be against austerity because austerity and the recession are making (INAUDIBLE), a death spiral. We

tried to avoid that. And the democracy at our national level in Greece has fractured. We had the referendum, which is the supreme way for a people to

express its will.

Unfortunately, democracy did not work at the level of the European Union. You must have read the communique, the common statement. They speak about

lack of trust. And to my understanding, this is our way of double-speak to signify that they had lack of tolerance. The words are option, an

alternative option for Europe against austerity. And it is clear that we have been outnumbered.

I hope that we're not going to remain like that and lecture Spain and Ireland and Portugal are going to follow. And maybe we're going to save to

see as if of the balance of power. There were some more problems in late action.

AMANPOUR: And, Mr. Katrougalos, if these reforms are passed and the Greek government has to implement them, we talked about trust; you just mentioned

it. Obviously the European leaders are constantly saying trust has evaporated.

Can they trust that Greece will actually follow through on reforms that have passed by the parliament this week?

KATROUGALOS: First of all, we must disassociate reforms that are necessary for our state, that we want to promote 200 percent. For instance, our

state is based on a clientelistic and partner system exactly because that was serving the interests of the oligarchs. We've got to change that.

But we wanted also to introduce collective agreements to our labor law. That is, for the moment, forbidden to us. Anyway, we're going to respect

the agreement, although it has been imposed to us under very harsh political pressure. And exactly because the people understand that our

prime minister was forced to accept this compromise. I think that they're going to back us, both at the road and our members of the parliament and

the parliament.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Katrougalos, do you think your prime minister took it too far over the brink? I mean, there was a less harsh deal that he could have

accepted before the whole referendum issue.

Do you think, for the sake of the Greek people, it would have been better to have accepted this bailout and the tough conditions before calling for a

referendum?

KATROUGALOS: No, I don't think so. I think that the same political sectors that were planning a Grexit were had us another intention to

overthrow our government in order exactly to avoid the political contagion and to make us an example that there is only one possible economic policy

throughout Europe. There is no alternative exactly because we have the elections in Spain, Portugal and Ireland this fall.

So I don't think it was a bad move on our behalf that resulted to this outcome. It was just at last a different business of Europe as I have just

mentioned.

AMANPOUR: A final question, the people need their money. And the banks are still closed and their cash from vending machines is still restricted.

When will this change?

When will people be able to feel secure going to get their cash out of the banks?

KATROUGALOS: Well, we have a decision from the European Central Bank that is going to increase the liquidity of our banking system. And therefore,

they have kept the liquidity exactly the same levels as last week. I expect that that ECB is going to respect its institutional mandate and

fulfill its faction, which is to ensure liquidity and stability of the European bank systems.

AMANPOUR: George Katrougalos, the minister of administrative reform, thank you so much for joining us live from Athens this evening.

And just ahead, as we've been talking, the Iran nuclear talks edge painfully closer to the precipice. I'm joined by American and Iranian

journalists here, who are coverage those talks. What could be next for both countries? After this.

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[14:12:00]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program live tonight from Vienna, where a landmark nuclear deal could soon be struck between six world powers and

Iran.

Of course, journalists here have been saying that for, oh, the past few weeks at least. And that's just this round. But by all accounts as the

top players make tantalizing appearances with their so-called balcony diplomacy, we are hearing they are in the final stretch.

And with me now are two long-suffering reporters, one American and one Iranian, David Sanger is the national security correspondent for "The New

York Times" and Mohammad Eslami is from the Khorasan Newspaper in Iran.

Welcome. Welcome to the program.

DAVID SANGER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Good to be back with you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: We don't often see an Iranian and an American together. I know you're not the diplomats. But have you forged any kind of rapprochement,

do you think?

SANGER: Oh, I think Mohammad and I as colleagues, we've all been talking to each other and exchanging notes and analysis in part because there's

been so little information that has come out in many ways from either the Iranian or American or European sides.

AMANPOUR: And what about you, Mohammad? Is it OK to hang out with an American?

MOHAMMAD ESLAMI, KHORASAN NEWSPAPER: Yes, surely. No, American, Iranians' perspective toward Americans is very positive and this is these new kinds

of (INAUDIBLE) Iranians Americans are seeing it's the first step for the deal. Why not?

AMANPOUR: So how has it been actually? I mean, it's a war of nerves here, waiting, waiting, waiting, knowing that we're told so much of the deal has

been done and wondering when it might be done.

What is it like? What do you do every day?

SANGER: Well, Christiane, this is a classic behavior that you see when two states are in the final stages of a negotiation that they both know will be

judged back home. So smaller issues that got run to the end -- in this case, the question of the United States -- the United Nations Security

Council arms embargo on Iran -- take on much bigger significance than they would had they been resolved at an earlier point.

And they take them on because neither side wants to be the one that had to do that last concession. And they can, of course, at times lose sight of

the bigger deal that they're getting here.

AMANPOUR: Let me read for you both, actually, President Rouhani has obvious spoken several times on television. He's tweeted this evening, "If

Iran deal victory of diplomacy and mutual respect over outdated paradigm of exclusion and coercion. And this will be a good beginning."

Is he having to convince the people of Iran or are the people of Iran behind him?

In other words, what are they waiting for there -- ?

(CROSSTALK)

ESLAMI: No, this is not only about the Iranians, you know. It is more than 35 years that there's no American diplomats who worked in Iran. And

because of no direct relations between the Iranians and the Americans, there are lots of misunderstanding and mistrust between them.

[14:15:00]

ESLAMI: And this round of negotiations, no matter what the conclusion, it's a first step to have first-hand information from each side.

AMANPOUR: What about the hardliners on both sides? And they exist.

Can they scupper the deal, for instance, in Iran, the Revolutionary Guard or the whoever or will they march behind President Rouhani -- well, the

leader, too, Ayatollah Khamenei?

ESLAMI: As I know, there are all parties in Iran, there are united and supporting the deal and supporting the negotiations. Even the hardliners.

You can see there is some hard -- in these days, you are supporting Mr. Zarif and (INAUDIBLE).

AMANPOUR: And, David, what happens in the United States? Obviously there's a lot of concern in Congress. There's a lot of concern in Israel.

In fact, I'm going to just play a sound bite. There are two sound bites here. One from Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is very against this

obviously, and one very different from President Putin, who actually wants the arms embargo lifted. Then we'll discuss it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): We think Iran should have sanctions removed. The question being in what period of time

and how quickly.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translator): Iran does not hide its intention to continue its murderous aggression even

against those with which it is negotiating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So that was Putin basically saying why shouldn't the arms embargo be lifted? Obviously they have certain self-interests as well

because they'd like to sell weapons. And Netanyahu's saying that Iran doesn't hide its intention to continue its murderous aggression, even

amongst those with which it's negotiating.

So very tough opposition from very important corners.

How does this get persuaded then? How does President Obama persuade everybody if a deal is done?

SANGER: Well, Christiane, you and I have talked about before, there are three deals to be had here, not one. There's one between Secretary Kerry,

the other Europeans, Chinese and Russians and Secretary Zarif, Foreign Minister Zarif.

The second deal is between Zarif and Rouhani and those hardliners in Iran. And I think, as Mohammad just pointed out, it's likely that with this, as

long as the Supreme Leader says he's behind this, everybody else, even those who oppose it, aren't going to voice much opposition.

The third deal is President Obama versus Congress. And there Prime Minister Netanyahu's going to have a fair bit of influence. The

Republicans, who would oppose this deal, will. But there's also a harder hurdle that the president's going to have to overcome, which is -- there

was this fascinating bipartisan letter that came out about two weeks ago. And among the signatories were five former members of the Obama team, who

had worked on Iran, know the issue well and set some of their own red lines out.

And I think that if the president can't meet those, he's going to have a problem because some Republicans will say, look, you've got to satisfy your

own team before you get to us.

If he can satisfy them, I think he's going to bring over some of the more moderate members of the old Bush team, including Steve Hadley, was one of

the signatories of the letter, and I think that will help him a lot in the battle in Congress.

Numerically, he almost can't lose this battle in Congress.

AMANPOUR: And what if the battle is lost here in the Palais Coburg behind us? What if they just cannot get over those hurdles? Some have said that

this could be the last chance for a long time. It's either the Rouhani administration or the Obama administration or nothing.

And what will the people of Iran feel if this fails?

ESLAMI: You know, it is not only that financial negotiations. It is not only multilateral negotiations. It is a negotiation that one side is Iran

and the other side is six major powers in the globe and U.N. Security Council and European Union. OK. If they cannot reach any deal, it was the

first thing. After that, we can continue. I don't think that any meaningful failure is available for these talks.

AMANPOUR: Well, that's interesting because can you just continue? I mean, the interim deal is not going to be in place ad nauseam. If this fails,

the interim agreement, which all sides are abiding by, is not going to last, is it?

SANGER: Well --

AMANPOUR: Do you go back to the bad old days, in other words?

SANGER: -- you know, you would certainly have hardliners on both sides arguing for that. You'd have Republicans in Congress, some others saying

ramp up sanctions. Don't think that's likely in the short term. And in Iran, I'm sure there will be some who say, well, we're free of the interim

deal. You can go back to producing 20 percent uranium, (INAUDIBLE) closest to bomb grade.

But right now, it does not feel like either side wants to break out. But neither side wants to be blamed for that last-minute concession that I've

discussed.

So I think the trick right now is going to be whether or not they think it's better to continue with the momentum they have here --

[14:20:00]

SANGER: -- and stick with this or take a pause until the U.N. general assembly meets in New York in September and then try to come back at that

moment.

The risk of doing that, Christiane, is that agreements that you think you've cemented together here can get unraveled in the time.

AMANPOUR: So we've got about a minute left. You just talked a little bit about a possible deadline.

But if I had to ask you to bet -- you first. Is there going to be an agreement this week? Are we going to hear it tomorrow?

ESLAMI: I hope so.

(LAUGHTER)

AMANPOUR: We were told it was going to be today.

ESLAMI: I hope so.

SANGER: I suspect there probably will be. But I think President Obama's under less pressure now to put together a deal than he was, say, a month

ago. He's won a big victory in the Supreme Court on health care. He's won a big victory on gay rights in the Supreme Court. He's riding a little bit

high and he has the time and space to hold out on this one in a way that I don't think he did a while back.

ESLAMI: And you know, there's an interesting point that Mr. Rouhani at yesterday's lecture, he said that if there's no agreement, we've done our

best. No? It means that there are tough issues and they have to reach a fair deal for both sides.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, a lot of effort has gone into this and of course the bigger question of what this might mean if there is a deal, is

there a strategic realignment. But we'll talk about that another time.

Mohammad Eslami, Khorasan newspaper in Iran, thank you.

David Sanger of "The New York Times," thank you very much.

We'll be here, watching with you all tomorrow.

And tonight, we move on and remember a glaring absence among the hundreds of journalists covering this story. Our colleague, "The Washington Post"

reporter Jason Rezaian, who today had the third hearing of his espionage trial behind closed doors in Tehran.

Locked outside, his wife and his mother, Ms. Rezaian, telling reporters, "I wish Jason was out so that he, too, could cover the wonderful story of Iran

and the United States."

After a break, another look at the horror of the Srebrenica genocide. This weekend, we commemorated the fall of the town 20 years ago. The killings

began right afterwards. And after a break, my interview back then with a miraculous survivor.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, this weekend, along with many other reporters and dignitaries, I was in Srebrenica, commemorating 20 years

since the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys. There were speeches, ceremonies and the long overdue burials of lost victims. They

took place to try to ensure that the horrors of that day are not forgotten.

Now the massacre started right after the town fell and lasted for days. And back in 1995, I heard how it happened from Hurem Suljic, one of the

rare survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): When the Bosnian Serbs seized Srebrenica in July, their commander, General Ratko Mladic, came in with a video crew to film

him, reassuring Muslim civilians.

"Don't panic. Let the small children and women pass," he said.

[14:25:00]

AMANPOUR (voice-over): "Don't be afraid. No one will do you any harm."

The whole crowd says thank you.

Hurem Suljic now lives in Bosnian government-held territory with his family. That day they were all in Srebrenica. Hurem tells us what

happened when Mladic's camera stopped rolling.

His wife, Raza, was bused out with the rest of the women and children. But Hurem and the men were not allowed to leave. He places Mladic at several

points along his story.

He says Mladic promised they would be exchanged for Serb prisoners. Instead, they began a journey that took them to makeshift detention

centers. Here, he says, killings and beatings began.

HUREM SULJIC, SREBRENICA SURVIVOR (through translator): A Serb soldier hit a man on the head with an iron bar and he fell down. And another soldier

hit him with an axe.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Then they had to hand over their money and documents.

SULJIC (through translator): But he said not to worry, just wait for the vehicles. You are going to see your families. Outside, I saw Mladic

giving orders but I couldn't hear what.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Next, they were herded onto trucks and on their way, along a dirt track, Hurem says he saw bodies.

SULJIC (through translator): We stopped there. One Serb pushed me and said, "Get out." He ordered me to stand near the dead people. So I did.

Others stood behind me in rows. The Serb said, "Don't look around."

Then I heard a lot of shooting and bodies fell on top of me. They were the people standing behind me. I fell, too.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Hurem wasn't hit. He kept quiet.

SULJIC (through translator): If anyone showed signs of life or if they heard anyone moan, they said, "Tell us where you are. Where are you?"

Then, they would kill him.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Hurem says truckloads of men were killed. He could see by the light of the moon and the lights on big digging machines. Here,

he says, he saw Mladic one last time.

SULJIC (through translator): He stood there and waited until they killed them. When they killed them, he got back in his car and left.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Eventually the killing stopped; the Serb soldiers left.

Hurem has a bad leg but he says he walked for four days until he reached government-held territory. The handful of people who did make it out have

told their stories to human rights officials and war crimes investigators, stories of mass murder, not death in combat.

Back in Srebrenica, the Dutch peacekeepers had witnessed Serbs separating men from women. They, too, report hearing shots and seeing bodies.

In August, the U.S. released aerial photos indicating mass graves near Srebrenica. U.S. officials say up to 3,000 people may be buried there.

What they didn't distribute publicly was satellite pictures taken two weeks earlier. These showed hundreds of men being held at gunpoint in some of

the killing fields. But U.S. administration officials say they didn't see any of the satellite evidence until after the victims were dead and buried.

The women, who were allowed to leave Srebrenica, report 8,000 of their men still missing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So right now, Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander, remains in The Hague on trial. So too does Radovan Karadzic, the wartime Bosnian

Serb political leader. Verdicts are expected soon in at least Karadzic's case.

And that is it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for watching and goodbye from Vienna, Austria, where we'll continue to monitor progress on this elusive Iran nuclear deal.

END