Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warns that the United States would trigger international "chaos" if it reneged on any nuclear deal it made with Tehran.
"I believe the United States will risk isolating itself in the world if there is an agreement [and] it decides to break it," Zarif told
Business Insider in response to a query submitted during a discussion at New York University.
"I don't think anybody will find that decision by the United States acceptable."
In March, 47 Republican senators — including presidential candidates Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — sent a
letter to the Iranian government noting that President Barack Obama didn't plan to submit any deal with Iran as a treaty to Congress, and because of that, the next president "could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time."
Zarif argued Wednesday that many U.S. international agreements were executive agreements — and took a pointed shot at Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who initiated the open letter and has been an outspoken critic of the nuclear talks, Business Insider reports.
"You know that, maybe Sen. Cotton doesn't, but you know that 90 percent of U.S. overseas agreements are executive agreements," Zarif said, including "the agreement you have in Afghanistan."
"From 1933 onwards, you have executive agreements that have stood the test of decades, various administrations, even a change in global environments," Zarif said, adding: "All sorts of stuff has happened in the world, and you had executive agreements which haven't changed and which have continued to operate ... None of them have been ratified by ... Congress, and they stand."
But changing the terms of a deal reached by the Obama administration could call the legitimacy of these other executive agreements into question, he warned.
"If the U.S. Senate wants to send a message to the rest of the world that all of these agreements ... 90 percent of international agreements are invalid, then you will have chaos in your bilateral relationships," Zarif said.
"You're welcome to do it, but I don't think that would be something that even the most radical elements in Congress want."
"I think the United States, whether you will have a Democratic president or whether you have a Republican president, is bound by international law ... and international law requires the United States to live by the terms of an agreement," Zarif said.
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