IAEA refuses to brief US Senators on Iran side deal

Bridget Johnson reports at PJ Media,

Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said at a hearing on the Iran nuclear deal today that they requested a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency on its agreements with Tehran.

These deals are not in the possession of the Obama administration and have never been seen by Secretary of State John Kerry, much less provided to Congress.

“I believe one person may have read it at the — at the facility, but doesn’t have it, they don’t possess it,” Kerry told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday.

Today, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano had been invited to come address lawmakers next week, but refused.

He turned down a meeting with senators in any setting: public, private or classified.

Corker is now gathering signatures from senators for another letter to Amano in hope that the IAEA chief will reconsider.

Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) stressed that they’ll “continue to press” for such a meeting as “from the beginning, it’s been our hope that we can get direct communications with the IAEA.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) noted that the IAEA is a UN organization “for which we pay membership dues.”

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