Over the weekend a number of media reports alleged former Secretary of State John Kerry has been meeting with Iranian and European officials in an effort to save the Iran nuclear agreement. In other words, he's been running a shadow diplomacy campaign to undercut President Trump's upcoming decision about whether to keep the deal or start over.
"John Kerry’s bid to save one of his most significant accomplishments as secretary of state took him to New York on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, where, more than a year after he left office, he engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official.
He sat down at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.
With the Iran deal facing its gravest threat since it was signed in 2015, Kerry has been on an aggressive yet stealthy mission to preserve it, using his deep lists of contacts gleaned during his time as the top US diplomat to try to apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside. President Trump, who has consistently criticized the pact and campaigned in 2016 on scuttling it, faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to continue abiding by its terms."
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Kerry's actions have not gone unnoticed by the man now occupying the Oval Office.
The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018
President Trump has until Saturday to make a decision about the future of the agreement. European officials are begging him to keep the U.S. in, while offering a number of fixes. Iran's reaction has been threatening, especially after Israeli intelligence revealed last week the deal was built on a pile of lies.
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