Senator Bob Corker, the top Republican on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Banking Committee member, said on Tuesday, “I don’t see anything happening until we get back [on December 2 from Thanksgiving recess].”
US President Barack Obama is preparing to meet key senators on Tuesday to brief them on the talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States - plus Germany.
Top Democrats and Republicans from the Senate’s banking, foreign relations, armed service and intelligence committees have been invited to the meeting, which will be hosted by Obama at the White House.
Iran and the P5+1 group resume the nuclear talks in Geneva on Wednesday. The last round of the negotiations was held in the Swiss city on November 7-10.
The White House meeting is another attempt by the US administration to dissuade Congress from imposing new sanctions against Iran after Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Senate Banking Committee last week.
Obama on Thursday had asked Congress to hold off on imposing any new economic sanctions on Iran to give negotiators more time to forge a deal on Tehran's nuclear program.
The US Senate Banking Committee has been mulling whether to move ahead with a new anti-Iran sanctions bill it had delayed before the talks on November 7-10.
The new round of sanctions, which the Senate Banking Committee has been asked to “mark up,” were passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in July.
Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Hassan Asafari, who sits on the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran’s Majlis, said on November 18 after a meeting with the Iranian negotiating team that Tehran will leave the negotiating table if the US Congress approves additional sanctions.
Meanwhile, Israel is exerting pressure on the US administration and Congress as well as other Western countries to prevent a potential nuclear deal with Iran.
