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Iran Nuclear Deal Reached; President Obama Delivers Remarks on Iran Deal; John Kerry Speaks on Iran Deal. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 14, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: How will that reflect on Congress? We have this story completely covered. We'll do reporting as we wait for President Obama to take the podium.

Let's begin with Nic Robertson live in Vienna. Nic, we have the three minute warning for the president about to speak. But what is the initial reaction from where you are?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, some of the details we are going to learn here very quickly as people begin to see this document. These are details we have been given under the embargo. That embargo has now been released. But you know, questions about could sanctions be snapped back on if Iran doesn't comply?

Well, there's going to be a commission that will oversee that. After 30 days, if Iran isn't seen to be within compliance, then there's the possibility of snapping back on sanctions after 30 days, the joint commission would report to the U.N. security council and say there is a mechanism there that will hold Iran's feet to the fire, if you will, on this if they don't go along with what they agreed.

Iran wanted reciprocity. On that we don't know what that may look like also, the additional protocols given the IAEA inspectors access to various sites across Iran. 15 day deadline for any disagreement is critical, too.

CUOMO: All right. Nic, thank you very much. We are standing by for word of the president taking the podium. We believe it will be in just moments. So let's go to Michelle Kosinski because she is down there obviously covering the White House for us. And what do we believe the thrust of the message is going to be other than to echo its relevance as historic?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we heard some of these points from Malgarini, he the best to mention that this is the best way forward. This is going to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That's what the White House has been saying for many, many months now.

It's almost a mantra from the White House. Yes, those points that they believe is the best option that yes, Iran has been a bad actor in many ways, but that is the reason that the U.S. and other nations need to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapon. That's what we've been hearing consistently. We expect the president to echo that without it being too much of a victory lap.

But what's interesting is that he's going to be speaking at the exact same time as the Iranian president. When you look at the way how Iranians are framing it, as their press. As a victory for them, that sanctions are going to be lifted. Investment will be able to pour into their country. The arms embargo is going to be lifted. Well, we expect to hear from the White House.

Even though some of those points are true. All of the restrictions that are going to be on them. Yes, the arms embargo will be lifted from what we are understanding. Some of the details have come out and given to journalist there. But that arms embargo will be lifted only in five years' time. The ballistic capacity in eight years' time and we expect the president to really emphasize the level of monitoring.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Michelle, here he is. Here is President Obama.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A comprehensive long-term deal with Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and meaningful change - change that makes our country, and the world, safer and more secure. This deal is also in line with a tradition of American leadership. It's now more than 50 years since President Kennedy stood before the American people and said, "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." He was speaking then about the need for discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union, which led to efforts to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons.

In those days, the risk was a catastrophic nuclear war between two super powers. In our time, the risk is that nuclear weapons will spread to more and more countries, particularly in the Middle East, the most volatile region in our world.

Today, because America negotiated from a position of strength and principle, we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this region. Because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon.

This deal meets every single one of the bottom lines that we established when we achieved a framework earlier this spring. Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off. And the inspection and transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in place. Because of this deal, Iran will not produce the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that form the raw materials necessary for a nuclear bomb.

[07:05:00] Because of this deal, Iran will remove two-thirds of its installed centrifuges - the machines necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for a bomb - and store them under constant international supervision. Iran will not use its advanced centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for the next decade. Iran will also get rid of 98 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium.

To put that in perspective, Iran currently has a stockpile that could produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. Because of this deal, that stockpile will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single weapon. This stockpile limitation will last for 15 years.

Because of this deal, Iran will modify the core of its reactor in Arak so that it will not produce weapons-grade plutonium. And it has agreed to ship the spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the lifetime of the reactor. For at least the next 15 years, Iran will not build any new heavy-water reactors.

Because of this deal, we will, for the first time, be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust; it is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran's key nuclear facilities.

Inspectors will have access to Iran's entire nuclear supply chain - its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facility, and its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities. This ensures that Iran will not be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Some of these transparency measures will be in place for 25 years.

Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location. Put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation into the possible military dimensions of Iran's past nuclear research.

Finally, Iran is permanently prohibited from pursuing a nuclear weapon under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which provided the basis for the international community's efforts to apply pressure on Iran.

As Iran takes steps to implement this deal, it will receive relief from the sanctions that we put in place because of Iran's nuclear program - both America's own sanctions and sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. This relief will be phased in. Iran must complete key nuclear steps before it begins to receive new sanctions relief. And over the course of the next decade, Iran must abide by the deal before additional sanctions are lifted, including five years for restrictions related to arms, and eight years for restrictions related to ballistic missiles.

All of this will be memorialized and endorsed in a new United Nations Security Council resolution. And if Iran violates the deal, all of these sanctions will snap back into place. So there's a very clear incentive for Iran to follow through, and there are very real consequences for a violation.

That's the deal. It has the full backing of the international community. Congress will now have an opportunity to review the details, and my administration stands ready to provide extensive briefings on how this will move forward. As the American people and Congress review the deal, it will be

important to consider the alternative. Consider what happens in a world without this deal. Without this deal, there is no scenario where the world joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear program. Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure. And the world would not support an effort to permanently sanction Iran into submission. We put sanctions in place to get a diplomatic resolution, and that is what we have done.

Without this deal, there would be no agreed-upon limitations for the Iranian nuclear program. Iran could produce, operate and test more and more centrifuges. Iran could fuel a reactor capable of producing plutonium for a bomb. And we would not have any of the inspections that allow us to detect a covert nuclear weapons program. In other words, no deal means no lasting constraints on Iran's nuclear program.

Such a scenario would make it more likely that other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world. It would also present the United States with fewer and less effective options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

[07:10:00] I've been President and Commander-in-Chief for over six years now. Time and again, I have faced decisions about whether or not to use military force. It's the gravest decision that any President has to make. Many times, in multiple countries, I have decided to use force. And I will never hesitate to do so when it is in our national security interest. I strongly believe that our national security interest now depends upon preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - which means that without a diplomatic resolution, either I or a future U.S. President would face a decision about whether or not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon or whether to use our military to stop it.

Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East. Moreover, we give nothing up by testing whether or not this problem can be solved peacefully. If, in a worst-case scenario, Iran violates the deal, the same options that are available to me today will be available to any U.S. President in the future. And I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now, the person who holds this office will be in a far stronger position with Iran further away from a weapon and with the inspections and transparency that allow us to monitor the Iranian program.

For this reason, I believe it would be irresponsible to walk away from this deal. But on such a tough issue, it is important that the American people and their representatives in Congress get a full opportunity to review the deal. After all, the details matter. And we've had some of the finest nuclear scientists in the world working through those details. And we're dealing with a country - Iran - that has been a sworn adversary of the United States for over 35 years. So I welcome a robust debate in Congress on this issue, and I welcome scrutiny of the details of this agreement.

But I will remind Congress that you don't make deals like this with your friends. We negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union when that nation was committed to our destruction. And those agreements ultimately made us safer.

I am confident that this deal will meet the national security interest of the United States and our allies. So I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal.

We do not have to accept an inevitable spiral into conflict. And we certainly shouldn't seek it. And precisely because the stakes are so high, this is not the time for politics or posturing. Tough talk from Washington does not solve problems. Hard-nosed diplomacy, leadership that has united the world's major powers offers a more effective way to verify that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Now, that doesn't mean that this deal will resolve all of our differences with Iran. We share the concerns expressed by many of our friends in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf States, about Iran's support for terrorism and its use of proxies to destabilize the region. But that is precisely why we are taking this step - because an Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would be far more destabilizing and far more dangerous to our friends and to the world.

Meanwhile, we will maintain our own sanctions related to Iran's support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and its human rights violations. We will continue our unprecedented efforts to strengthen Israel's security - efforts that go beyond what any American administration has done before. And we will continue the work we began at Camp David to elevate our partnership with the Gulf States to strengthen their capabilities to counter threats from Iran or terrorist groups like ISIL.

However, I believe that we must continue to test whether or not this region, which has known so much suffering, so much bloodshed, can move in a different direction.

Time and again, I have made clear to the Iranian people that we will always be open to engagement on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect. Our differences are real and the difficult history between our nations cannot be ignored. But it is possible to change. The path of violence and rigid ideology, a foreign policy based on threats to attack your neighbors or eradicate Israel - that's a dead end. A different path, one of tolerance and peaceful resolution of conflict, leads to more integration into the global economy, more engagement with the international community, and the ability of the Iranian people to prosper and thrive.

[07:15:00] This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.

We have come a long way to reach this point - decades of an Iranian nuclear program, many years of sanctions, and many months of intense negotiation. Today, I want to thank the members of Congress from both parties who helped us put in place the sanctions that have proven so effective, as well as the other countries who joined us in that effort. I want to thank our negotiating partners - the United Kingdom, France,

Germany, Russia, China, as well as the European Union - for our unity in this effort, which showed that the world can do remarkable things when we share a vision of peacefully addressing conflicts. We showed what we can do when we do not split apart.

And finally, I want to thank the American negotiating team. We had a team of experts working for several weeks straight on this, including our Secretary of Energy, Ernie Moniz. And I want to particularly thank John Kerry, our Secretary of State, who began his service to this country more than four decades ago when he put on our uniform and went off to war. He's now making this country safer through his commitment to strong, principled American diplomacy.

History shows that America must lead not just with our might, but with our principles. It shows we are stronger not when we are alone, but when we bring the world together. Today's announcement marks one more chapter in this pursuit of a safer and more helpful and more hopeful world.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

CUOMO: All right, we just heard from President Obama. Some high points here about why he says the deal is better. One, that it is better when we are together with the international community and when we deal with an opponent alone as the United States. Two-thirds of the centrifuges will be removed and stored and under constant supervision. For 10 years they can't make uranium. Those two of the big headlines.

CAMEROTA: So something fascinating happened in Iran. That is the first time that Iran took President Obama's speech live, broadcast as it was happening. And now, we will hear from the President of Iran Ali Khamenei and his interpretation of this deal. It is translated into English, we believe.

Let's take a listen.

ALI KHAMENEI, PRESIDENT OF IRAN: From what I have heard, many people have in their prayers, including in the prayers pray for our team of nuclear negotiators so that we arrive at a good agreement. I announced to our dear nation that their prayers have come true.

Today, we are at a critical and important juncture in the history of our country and our revolution in light of the conditions of the region. These conditions, to summarize, basically indicate that in the past 12 years, there have been some imagined views by powers that were spread and that has been overturned and a new page has emerged. This new page...

CUOMO: All right, we are going to dip out right now is, Rouhani Hassan as he is saying that he echo President Obama's optimism. He is saying this is a new page and that he hopes a lot of mischaracterizations about Iran will be

replaced by what they do going forward. CAMEROTA: It's interesting to hear his interpretation versus the

president. They are both optimistic and that it is a new day. It was interesting to hear how he phrases it and frames it in his country that there have been misconceptions and false views. Today that ends.

So this Iranian deal had huge stakes obviously for President Obama, his legacy was on the line, in some ways. And also it will have impact for the more than 20 candidates lining up to replace him in 2016. Let's talk about the politics with CNN's John King. He's going to take a deeper look. So John, so fascinating to hear the President. He made it sound like this was a slam dunk of a deal.

[07:20:00] It's basically unassailable, but, of course, congress doesn't necessarily share his view on that.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: You are absolutely, right, Alisyn. Not only the congress, which is controlled by Republicans, but a lot of democrats are very skeptical. It was very clear he thinks this is the biggest foreign policy achievement of his presidency. He made clear, he views it as history. It is foolish to walk away. It will make the world safer and make the United States safer.

He played the Reagan card if you will without mentioning his name. Talking to directly skeptics in congress saying we sat down with the Soviet Union started in the Kennedy years. But under the Reagan years it cut some pretty breakthrough arms control agreements that the president made.

In this case you sit down with your enemies and you can make the world safer. That part proofed that the president understands. This is his biggest foreign policy achievement and will be his toughest sell with United States. Congress has 60 days to vote up or down approval or disapproval. And the president made crystal clear. First, he went through the litany.

He says it's a good deal. Walking away is a huge risk. If Iran cheats down the road, we can go back to sanctions. But then he also said if congress defies me on this one, I will veto any legislation design to block me that's the key point Chris and Alisyn. Can the president keep 34 members of his own party in the United States senate on his side?

Because the expectation is, at the moment, the president says I will brief you. The president hopes to overcome the skepticism. Watch what happens. Most of the people in congress, especially the leadership waited for the president to speak before they released public statement. Watch the skepticism and the opposition come out of the next several hours. You get a lot of Republicans skepticism there. Watch the democrats as well.

CUOMO: John, it's already bubbling up. I know you are hearing it. I'm hearing it here at the desk over the computer and e-mail and social media. This deal is unacceptable. We should have tightened the screws. The political reality. Walk us through it. They look at the deal. Let's assume the worse. They say, we don't like it. They vote to put it down. The president vetoes that decision. They, let's say get the two-thirds. I know that's politically, but let's say they get it. Then what happens?

KING: That's a fascinating question if we get to that point.

CAMEROTA: John, sorry to interrupt you, hold on a second, we - I believe the Secretary of State, John Kerry is speaking right now. Stand by.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: This has been a long couple of weeks for everybody, including, above all, the press, who waited long hours during the day for very little news. We are grateful for your patience.

This is an historic day but, for me, it's an historic day because it represents the first time in six weeks that I have worn a pair of shoes.

Today, in announcing a joint comprehensive plan of action, the United States, our P5 plus one and partners in Iran have taken a measurable step away from the prospect of nuclear proliferation towards transparency and cooperation. It is a step away from the Spector of conflict and towards the possibility of peace.

This moment has been a long time coming. We have worked very hard to get here. The resolution to this type of challenge never comes easily. Not when the stakes are so high, not when the issues are so technical and not when each decision effects global and regional security so directly.

The fact is, the agreement we have reached fully implemented will bring insight and accountability to Iran's nuclear program, not for a small number of years, but for the lifetime of that program. This is the good deal that we have sought. Believe me, had we been willing to settle for a lesser deal, we would have finished this negotiation a long time ago. But, we were not.

All of us, not just the United States but France, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, China and the EU were determined to get this right. So, we have been patient and I believe our persistence has paid off.

A few months ago in Lozan, we and our international partners joined Iran in announcing a series of parameters to serve as contours of a potential deal. Experts and commentators were, in fact, surprised by all we had achieved at that point.

[07:25:00] After three more months of long days and late nights, I'm pleased to tell you that we have stayed true to those contours and we have now finally carved in the details.

I want to be very clear, the parameters that we announced in Lozan not only remained intact and formed the backbone of the agreement we reached today but through the detail they have been amplified in ways that make this agreement even stronger. That includes the sizable reduction of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium and the number of centrifuges it operates. It also guarantees Iran's breakout time, the time it would take for

Iran to speed up its enrichment and produce enough material for one nuclear weapon. That time will increase to at least one year for a period of at least 10 years. And contrary to the assertions of some, this agreement has no sunset. It doesn't terminate. It will be implemented in phases beginning within 90 days of the U.N. security council endorsing the deal and some of the provisions are in place for 10 years, others for 15 years, others for 25 years.

And certain provisions, including many transparency measures and provisions on nuclear work will stay in place permanently. Most importantly, this agreement addresses Iran's potential pathways to thistle material for a bomb exactly as we said it would with appropriate limitations and transparency in order to ensure the world of the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.

Let me explain exactly how it will accomplish that goal.

To start, the participants have agreed Iran will not produce or acquire either highly enriched uranium or weapons grade plutonium for at least the next 15 years and Iran declares a longer period of intent. Iran's total stockpile of enriched uranium, which today is equivalent to 12,000 kilograms of uf-6 will be capped at just 300 kilograms for the next 15 years.

An essential component of expanding our breakout time. Two-thirds of Iran's centrifuges will be removed from nuclear facilities along with the infrastructure that supports them. Once they are removed, the centrifuges will be - and the infrastructure, by the way, will be locked away and around the clock monitoring by the international atomic energy agency. Uranium enrichment will be scaled down significantly.

For the next 15 years, no uranium will be enriched beyond 3.67%. To put that in context, this is a level that is appropriate for civilian nuclear power and research but well below anything that could be used, possibly, for a weapon. For the next 10 years, Iran agreed to only use its first generation centrifuges in order to enrich uranium. They agreed to disconnect centrifuges. Those installed will be closely monitored and program and none will be used to produce enriched uranium.

Iran has also agreed to stop enriching uranium for the next 16 years. It will not even use or store thistle material on the site during that time. Instead, it will be transformed into a nuclear physics and technology research center. It will be used, for example, to produce isotopes for cancer treatment and subject today inspection. And it will have other nations working in unison with the Iranians within that technology center.

So, when the deal is implemented, the two uranium paths Iran has toward thistle material for a weapon will be closed off. The same is true for the plutonium path.