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Iran Reached Deal after Months of Talks; The Future of a Nuclear Relationship; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 17, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: the special weekend edition of our program, perhaps summed up best by this week's

"Economist," after the breakthrough in Vienna that starts bringing Iran in from the cold.

Through diplomacy, not war, the United States and major world powers have curbed Iran's nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions. Both

President Obama and President Rouhani addressed their nations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This deal meets every single one of the bottom lines that we established when we achieved a

framework earlier this spring. Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off.

HASSAN ROUHANI, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I announce to our dear nation that their prayers have come true. Today we are at a

critical and important juncture in the history of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now comes the difficult phase of selling, implementing and verifying the deal. As we witnessed the drama conclude in Vienna, we spoke

to the chief negotiators. Coming up: how it all unfolded.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour, live in Vienna, where a new era has begun in relations

between Iran and the world powers, hammered out over weeks in this building behind me, which is now mostly empty; all the delegations are going and

Secretary Kerry has wheeled up back to Washington.

But a deal has finally been struck that legitimizes although limits Iran's nuclear program in return for lifting crippling sanctions on the

country. It's been more than a decade in the making but reaching agreement seemed unthinkable before the Rouhani and Obama administrations. The

Iranians have been on tenterhooks awaiting this moment.

And of course the potential for a better life at home and better relations with the rest of the world. But there are also powerful skeptics

and opponents, from hardliners in Iraq, in the United States and in Israel, who could still derail it.

So as the ink was drying, I sat down separately with both chief negotiators, Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and first, the U.S.

Secretary of State John Kerry. As big a deal as this is, both agreed the devil would be in the implementation.

AMANPOUR: Secretary Kerry, thank you for joining us.

Have you made history?

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, people call it an historic agreement, I guess because Iran has come to the table and on paper we have

an agreement.

But we don't have anything until this is implemented. We have the -- I mean, we have an outline. And so I think it's a strong one. I think

it's a great possibility. But as I said in my comments today, it's the implementation of this that will really be the measure.

AMANPOUR: What about the selling of it before even it gets implemented?

How difficult will that be?

KERRY: Well, there are people who regrettably have just already automatically politically decided I'm going to oppose this. And without

even knowing or reading the agreement, without knowing all the terms of it, they're opposed to it. And there are people who have decided -- many of

them -- that you just shouldn't deal with Iran.

But they don't offer an alternative. While we did that in the years 2000 until Obama came in, guess what? Their program went from 164

centrifuges to 19,000. Their enrichment stockpile reached a level over 10,000 kilograms, where they had enough fissile material to make 10 bombs.

Is that safer? Is that what people want to go back to? Or do they want to go just straight to war?

AMANPOUR: Do you think --

KERRY: They have an obligation. People have an obligation to define what's the alternative. You're not going to sanction them into oblivion.

They've proven that. We've seen that in the last years.

Sanctions brought them to the table to negotiate. They did the very thing everybody put the sanctions in place to get them to do, which is

negotiate. So they negotiated.

Now measure the agreement to see whether or not it achieves what we --

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KERRY: -- need do in terms of insight, restraint, accountability and so forth. That's what we should be doing.

AMANPOUR: The E.U. chief, Federica Mogherini, said this is not just a deal, it's a good deal.

What do you say to those who say, well, OK. It's restricted them for 10 years and 15 and 25, depending on various issues.

What about after that? Are you confident that they don't rush to start up again? Or is that for a future generation?

KERRY: Well, I can't make any promise about long-term future of anybody, including the United States' actions or choices, for any future

president, obviously.

But in life, you have to bet on and in diplomacy and in conflict, you have to set up a structure and try to live by it and put it to the test.

We negotiated with the Soviet Union. We negotiated with Red China. We negotiated for years with people we deemed to be the archenemy.

And without any trust, we put restraints in our nuclear programs or came to understandings. Could you sit there and say you knew exactly what

would happen 20 -- no, of course not.

But you try to shape that behavior through the choices you make and the things you put in place. We know to a certainty what this will do. We

also know -- we know, Christiane, that we have unprecedented access through this in terms of verification.

So, yes, they get to do more in the out years. That's their right as they clean up -- supposedly -- and become an NPT good standing country.

Remember, during all of this time, Iran never pulled out of the non- proliferation treaty. They could have. They could have said to hell with you; we'll do our own thing.

They've lived by the NPT. They're living by it now. And they -- well, they say they're living by it now. They haven't lived by it

completely, which is why we put the sanctions on them. So now we're putting to task whether or not there's a change of heart, a change of mind,

a change of direction and, if there isn't, we have every option available to us, every day, that we have right now.

AMANPOUR: Personally, how do you feel? You've been in pain. You've been on crutches. You said that you wore a first pair of shoes in days

because we saw you wearing sneakers. One of your opposite numbers, the Iranian chief of atomic energy, also has been very ill.

How has it been personally, cooped up in that Palais Coburg for all these days and weeks and months?

KERRY: Well, we all thought we were living "Groundhog Day." I mean, we really felt stir-crazy and constrained. But motivated by the importance

of the opportunity and by the seriousness of the subject, obviously.

AMANPOUR: Final question: is this a strategic realignment? You talked about Red China. You talked about the Soviet Union. You seem, this

administration, to be saying this is more than about a nuclear deal or potentially it could redefine the balance of power and your relations in

the Middle East.

KERRY: Well, it has the possibility of doing that. And you heard President Rouhani suggest that and you heard Foreign Minister Zarif suggest

that. It would be stupid diplomatically, it would be diplomatic malfeasance and (INAUDIBLE) if you ignored exploring a possibility.

Now we haven't done that yet. We exclusively negotiated a nuclear deal because we knew that if we got into the other issues, you would never

get to the nuclear deal. So an Iran without a nuclear weapon, Christiane, I think you know this as a matter of common sense, is better to deal with

than an Iran with one.

For those who are worried about Iran's behavior in the region, we are better off pushing back or dealing with that behavior if they're not on a

path to get one and we believe we are clearly demonstrating a way in which they cannot get a nuclear weapon.

AMANPOUR: Secretary John Kerry, thank you very much indeed.

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AMANPOUR: So right after sitting down with John Kerry, I came back here to the Palais Coburg and sat down with his opposite number, Javad

Zarif. Now there has been so many reports of frayed tempers and even some shouting. Both admitted to me that did happen during the negotiations.

But at the end of those arguments, at the end of each day, they went away with a smile on their faces and renewed commitment.

Here now is what I asked Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister Zarif, welcome. Thank you.

JAVAD ZARIF, FOREIGN MINISTER, IRAN: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Did you make history today?

ZARIF: Well, I hope so. History is made by good decisions that are implemented. I think we adopted a good decision. I think it's good for

all. It's now time to implement it.

But more importantly than that, if you want to make history today, this has to be the foundation of the city, for building on something that

can in fact break a several-year-old misperception, unnecessary crisis --

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ZARIF: -- so that we can deal with the real crises that are affecting all of us.

AMANPOUR: Iran has always called the United States the great Satan. And now you're making a deal with the United States, the great Satan. Some

are already saying that it's a surrender.

How will you sell it back home?

ZARIF: Well, we, first of all, have an agreement with P5+1 or E3+3, as the Europeans like to call it. It's not with the United States. But

the United States is an important part of this -- was an important part of this process. And it is, in our view, a good agreement.

Any agreement includes compromise. We have, in fact, accepted some limitations and in reciprocation of -- for our acceptance of those

limitations, we receive quite a lot of benefit. Neither side was prepared to provide the flexibility that has now led us to this agreement.

If you look at the fact that now Iran has a nuclear program, an enrichment program, a heavy water reactor, an R&D program, it completes

nuclear peaceful because it was always peaceful, nuclear program. That two years ago people thought would never be accepted by any of the major

powers.

Now I'm happy that these people have come to the conclusion that the old way didn't work, that imposition, coercion for eight years on this

issue, 30-some years on other issues, has produced nothing.

And two years of diplomacy has produced an agreement of peace.

AMANPOUR: What do you say to those who will take precisely what you've just told me about all that you've gained under this agreement and

they'll say, well, you know what, it's only 10 years and then they can do whatever they want. Sure, they'll go for this agreement.

ZARIF: Well, the fact is that if people were worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions, those ambitions were always peaceful. So last year it

was peaceful; 10 years ago it was peaceful. Ten years from now it will be peaceful. They shouldn't worry about that.

Iran's interest in maintaining a nuclear weapons-free region is paramount. We believe that nuclear weapons do not augment our security and

that is a very serious sober political analysis but founded in our religious beliefs.

Don't forget that we were the victims of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War and we had the capability to use them. But we never did.

These are principles, fundamental principles on which we operate.

So if they want to close four pathways to a bomb or 40 pathways to a bomb, they can close them all because we do not want the pathway to the

bomb.

AMANPOUR: What do you say about this is not trust, this is verify and the bottom line will be what the IAEA says?

How do you square what President Obama and Secretary Kerry say, which is 24/7, anywhere, anytime inspections? And what you say, which is no,

it's not anywhere, anytime?

ZARIF: I'll just ask them to go read the deal.

AMANPOUR: So what is it?

ZARIF: The deal is that we accepted an international mechanism that is there -- it actually provides 24/7 access to nuclear facilities. We

have had that in the past. It's interesting that, over the past 10 years, Iran has been visited more often than any other country, probably in some

years with the exception of Japan.

But in the last 3-4 years, Iran even exceeded Japan in the times -- time of visits that the IAEA made to Iran in order to search Iran, to see

whether we had any undeclared nuclear program and they didn't find any.

For the past 10 years, the IAEA has looked everywhere in Iran. Of course, we were not a member of the initial protocol; two years of that, we

were. But eight years we were not a member of additional protocol. But IAEA has inspected and inspected and inspected and they didn't find any

indication of nuclear weapons activity.

And we believe that another 10 years of inspection by the IAEA will produce the same result because we are not interested in nuclear weapons.

AMANPOUR: And what about the military sites?

ZARIF: First of all, it's not military sites. It's undeclared facilities. Undeclared facilities can be anywhere. Managed access is a

term used by the additional protocol and we are working within an international mechanism. And we have agreed to certain procedures in order

to address disputes arising --

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AMANPOUR: Including what you may have done in the past.

ZARIF: That is a different deal. We already agreed with the Secretary General Amano and the IAEA to have an outline of what we need to

do together in order to address those.

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ZARIF: We believe those are basically groundless allegations that have been made against us, primarily by Israel, which is the most -- the

single most important threat to the non-proliferation regime in the world because it possesses many, in some estimates 200 nuclear warheads.

AMANPOUR: Are you prepared for the IAEA to find that maybe you did have some tinkering around with military nuclear experiments?

ZARIF: Well, I'm not prepared for the IAEA to find out because that will be a lie.

AMANPOUR: How do you square what the leader said, which is no access and no anytime, anyplace, with what's now being called managed access to

certain sites?

ZARIF: We've said very clearly that our military sites are off limits. We are prepared to cooperate with the IAEA and we have now a

program to cooperate.

And I think if you read the agreement, annex 1 of the agreement, it's clearly written that these -- the attempts to verify possible undeclared

activity are not designed or are not aimed at military or other secrets of Iran or any other country.

This is well established in the text and I believe we will be living up to our commitment. But according to the agreement, not to people's

illusions.

AMANPOUR: I mean, everybody's been saying what's in it for them. Why is this good for Iran?

ZARIF: Well, we wanted to change the nature of our relationship with the West.

We didn't believe that it was good for Iran and the West, while we have common threats and common challenges in our region, to be basically

entrenching ourselves in a non-issue, in an unnecessary crisis, in a fabricated crisis that has been created for over the past almost decade or

more.

And I think it was important to move away from that. And that was the promise of President Rouhani's platform elections, to engage in

constructively with the rest of the world. And I believe that's important.

Of course, we want to get rid of sanctions because they are an imposition on our population and, in fact, in times, inhuman burden on the

Iranian people and we have a responsibility to try to remove it. But maintaining our dignity and our rights.

AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister, thank you very much indeed.

ZARIF: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: So you've just heard from both the main chief negotiators of this deal and just ahead we stay with the deal at hand. The director

general of the IAEA on verifying this historic accord -- that's next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And we are live from Vienna, where a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers has finally been signed. And we've just heard

from the two main political players.

And now the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency, the IAEA, will have to verify the process. And Director General Yukiya Amano is here with me,

live and exclusively to explain this massive task.

First of all, welcome to the program.

Very important for us to have you here tonight because you've heard what both sides have said in terms of verifying and the tough

implementation going forward. So is it 24/7, anytime, anyplace?

Tell us what you have to do to verify this.

YUKIYA AMANO, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: Today we reached agreement on two very important agreement. One is the

comprehensive agreement and another is on the road map. I think you are talking about the comprehensive agreement.

And important thing of this agreement is that it will allow us to implement the additional protocol which is a very important verification

tool. It's a very powerful tool.

AMANPOUR: What does it let you do? Where does it let you go?

AMANO: In short, the additional protocol will give us more information and access right. We receive very detailed declaration from

Iran, more extensive and more in-depth. We verify it and when we find the need to review that document or visit the location, then we can request

another visit.

This is called complimentary access and this can be done in a managed manner.

AMANPOUR: Now is this to nuclear sites? Or is this to military sites?

AMANO: This is nuclear -- to the nuclear site and the objective is to achieve our technical objective. But this nuclear site could be in a

military location. Therefore, our interest is not the military sites other as a whole or as such but our focus in on nuclear activities.

AMANPOUR: You heard those two interviews. To your mind as the technical verifier of all of this -- and you've seen all the paperwork and

the agreements -- is there a difference between what the United States is saying you will do, unprecedented, thorough, comprehensive inspections, and

what Iran says you'll do?

AMANO: No, I don't think so. The IAEA is a technical organization and we forecast known facts. We have -- we will soon implement this

powerful verification tool, additional protocol, and in that process we'll implement it in accordance with the IAEA verification practice.

We are implementing it in 120 countries and we apply the same standard to all the countries, including Iran.

AMANPOUR: Now you signed something different, but related. You signed a road map today with Iran's chief of the atomic agency there. It

was about trying to find out past military activity.

Is that correct?

AMANO: Yes. Today I signed a road map with the vice president of Iran, Mr. Salehi. The objective of this agreement, road map, is to clarify

the issues with possible military dimension, for past and current issues. This is a very robust process because it establishes clear timetable and

identifies measures like expert technical meetings (ph).

AMANPOUR: So many more questions. But thank you very much, Yukiya Amano, director general of the IAEA, thank you very much indeed.

AMANO: Thank you very much for inviting me.

AMANPOUR: Thank you so much.

And when we come back, we imagine the home of these talks --

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AMANPOUR: -- Vienna, of course -- a city filled with history of diplomacy and vision -- after this.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, today we've seen a deal that could be potentially world-shaping. It took place in no small part thanks to the

host city, Vienna.

AMANPOUR: And it's not a first for Austria's capital. Two hundred years ago the Congress of Vienna gathered leaders from across Europe to

redraw the borders and change the face of history, creating a model that was followed by the League of Nations and then the United Nations more than

a century later.

Today, we can imagine a world where the famed city has helped build a historic deal once again.

The Austrian capital providing its scenic Palais Coburg behind me as a home for the negotiators and their balcony diplomacy as well, which

amounted to often keeping reporters happy with deliveries of thousands of Viennese chocolates and beyond the sweets and the sweeping vistas, the city

that inspired, of course, the music of Mozart and the art of Klimt.

Now it will carry the name of an accord that's the first concrete step to chipping away at a wall of mistrust.

And that is it for our program tonight. And remember that you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook

and Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from Vienna.

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