WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this morning to discuss recent conversations he had with leaders in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and at the International Atomic Energy Agency Headquarters (IAEA) in Austria about pushing back on Iranian aggression. Watch video of the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-c9u30psgg&feature=youtu.be
Excerpts from the interview are below:
Senator Coons on what he said to leaders in Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Austria, regarding Iran: “We haven’t lost our minds and suddenly decided that Iran is a safe and easy country, the sort of country with which we’d like to be closely aligned”
“I think we have achieved some real progress towards peace with the [nuclear agreement] with Iran, but we also have to be clear with our allies: Iran is still a dangerous country, Iran still has – I think – nuclear ambitions, and is actively supporting terrorism throughout the region and the world.”
“Let’s be clear about what [Iran] had to do in order to get access to the $50 billion in Iranian frozen assets that were being held in banks around the world. They had to ship virtually their entire stockpile of enriched uranium – twelve tons – outside of the country. It’s now under IAEA seal, outside of Iran, so they don’t have access to it to build a bomb. They had to pour concrete into the very center of a reactor that could have produced weapons-grade plutonium. And they’ve had to give access to the IAEA to their entire system – better intelligence than we’ve ever had.”
“The point that I’ve been making on the floor of the Senate and with other colleagues is that frankly, we’ve been clear all along that we don’t accept, we don’t support, and we won’t tolerate their ballistic missile program, their support for terrorism, and their human rights violations.”
“It’s my hope that on a bipartisan basis, Senators of both parties will recognize that we can and should be tougher on this.”
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