Republican US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress next month, extending the invitation without first informing the White House.
In a statement announcing the invitation, Boehner said, “In this time of challenge, I am asking the Prime Minister to address Congress on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.”
Netanyahu accepted the offer and will address a joint session on Feb. 11, according to a congressional aide who spoke on background because the Israeli Embassy has not yet made a public announcement.
Netanyahu has previously addressed the US Congress in 2011 and 2006.
Boehner and other Republicans in Congress are spearheading proposed legislation which would re-impose sanctions on Iran if an agreement on its nuclear programme is not concluded by the end of June.
At the weekly House Republican meeting, Boehner said hat Congress will continue to pursue sanctions. "President Obama expects us to stand idly by and do nothing while he cuts a bad deal with Iran. Two words: 'Hell no!' We're going to do no such thing," he said, according to his office. "Let's send a clear message to the White House, and the world, about our commitment to Israel and our allies."
At least one top Senate Democrat has also been publicly skeptical of the Obama's approach to negotiations with Iran.
"After 18 months of stalling, Iran needs to know that there will be consequences for failure — and that consequence will be additional sanctions," said Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at a hearing on the status of the Iran talks.
Menendez is a co-sponsor of legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran if diplomatic negotiations fail to reach an agreement to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. and diplomats from Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain (also referred to sometimes as the P5+1) have been engaged in talks for more than a year over Iran's nuclear program. The latest deadline for an agreement is late March, which would allow for implementation by July.
But in his State of the Union address earlier this week, President Obama made clear that he would oppose such legislation, as he believes it could derail the delicate ongoing negotiations with Iran.
Senator Menendez offered a harsh assessment of the White House's strategy. "The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran," he said.
Boehner’s invitation clearly came as a surprise to the Obama Administration with White House spokesman Josh Earnest saying “The protocol would suggest that the leader of one country would contact the leader of another country when he’s traveling there. This particular event seems to be a departure from that protocol.”
Earnest would not commit to a meeting between Obama and Netanyahu if the address takes place, commenting, “We’ll need to hear from them about what their plans are and what he plans to say in his remarks to Congress.”
Relations between Netanyahu and Obama have been characterised as frosty and the two leaders are thought to disagree over some aspects of a potential nuclear deal with Iran.
In an op-ed published in The Washingon Post and titled ‘’Give diplomacy with Iran a chance’’, French, British andGerman Foreign Ministers, Laurent Fabius, Philip Hammond and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as well as EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, wrote : ‘’Our responsibility is to make sure diplomacy is given the best possible chance to succeed. Maintaining pressure on Iran through our existing sanctions is essential. But introducing new hurdles at this critical stage of the negotiations, including through additional nuclear-related sanctions legislation on Iran, would jeopardize our efforts at a critical juncture’’
They also stressed tht ‘’any agreement must provide concrete, verifiable and long-lasting assurances that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful. Nothing less will do. It is now up to Iran to make a strategic choice between open-ended cooperation and further isolation.’’