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Iran Nuclear Deal Could Come As Soon As Tuesday; No Nuclear Expected Today; Greece Getting Another European Bailout; Arms Embargo Is A Key Sticking Point; President Of Iran Tweets; Drug Lord Escapes From Prison A Second Time; Iran Nuclear Deal Unlikely to Get Done Today. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 13, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 7:00 p.m. in Vienna Austria, 8:00 p.m. in Athens, Greece. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We start with two big stories developing right now, one in Vienna, one in Brussels. In Vienna, nuclear negotiations with Iran are seemingly on the threshold of a -- of history, that is if all sides can get past final stumbling blocks.

And in Brussels right now, Greek leaders have a concrete deal for their financial future. They'll get another bailout from Europe, but it comes with heavy conditions. We'll get to that shortly.

But first, let's get some more on this expected nuclear deal with Iran. There are still some problems. Negotiators extended the deadline twice last week as they tried to hammer out final details of the last sticking points.

Let's get to Christiane Amanpour. She's joining us from Vienna. Christiane, I understand that it now looks increasingly unlikely a deal announced today, is that right?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is certainly right, from the Iranian side. And we've had it confirmed from the spokesman that through balcony (ph) diplomacy, if you like -- balcony is behind me where some of the principals come out for a breath of fresh air. We were told and we saw the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, basically nod his head back in the Iranian way of saying no when asked if there was going to be a deal.

So, that is the situation, from their point of view, although certainly diplomats have been meeting in many, many sessions all day. And it does seem to be, according to all the diplomats I've spoken to, some very key players today on the European side, the U.S. side, the Iranian side, that the nuclear part of this deal is done, in their words.

Now, they are hammering out the formalities of what will be a U.N. resolution to cover the, you know, ongoing forward-going movement of this deal. So, that is what we're told is happening. We're told that, obviously as everybody knows, it's a 100-page document. There are about 20 pages which is cover the deal and about 80 pages of annexes, which we're told are being gone over literally word by word. And sometimes those negotiations can take several hours over a couple of words.

So, it is very, very long and there are, obviously, still some outstanding issues. We're being told by quite a few people that one of the outstanding issues is the notion of how to finesse the idea of the arms embargo being lifted and how that is going to be enshrined whether it will or not.

What we're also told -- I was told that there will not be a formal extension. No more formal extensions after the next 24 hours or so. But we'll see how that goes. We've heard that before. But most people are saying that they believe a deal is likely. And we also know that inside Iran they believe a deal is likely. Certainly, the president and everybody there getting ready to announce a deal. We'll wait and see whether it does come.

BLITZER: Because it looks, Christiane, based on what we're hearing, that the U.S. definitely does not want to see that U.N. arms embargo against Iran lifted. The Russians, on the other hand, would like to see it lifted. They would like to start selling a lot of weapons to Iran. Iran will be cashing in, getting a whole lot of money from those frozen billions of dollars, 10s of billions of dollars in assets. They'll have money to spend on weapons. That could be a major stumbling block right now, right?

AMANPOUR: Well, it's hard to know whether it's a major stumbling block. It could be, you're absolutely right or whether they can find language that will basically be win-win for all sides.

I mean, you know, we've heard many, many times not only are there issues being discussed here but there's also the language around those issues so that it doesn't look like one side or the other is losing. Everybody's talking about trying to get a win-win situation. So, that is what they're trying to do behind closed doors, that and other issues, obviously. And -- but they keep saying, well, we think it's close. We think it's close. Of course, we have heard that many, many times.

But so much has been vested in this process. Nearly two years. And about 21 months of non-stop negotiations. And let's not forget, this is an extension of what's been going on for more than 10 years. I recalled today, when I arrived in Vienna, that one of the first times I covered this very process was back in 2003-2004. Different administrations, both in Iran, in the United States, in Europe. But this has been going on for a long, long time, the idea of easing some sanctions in return for Iran restricting its nuclear program -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It's not a -- it's not a deal until everything is wrapped up. Clearly, they still have some issues to try to deal with. Christiane, we'll stay in very close touch with you. Christiane is in Vienna for us right now.

And for our international viewers, by the way, Christiane will have a lot more coming up right at the top of the hour on AMANPOUR. This Iran nuclear deal may be close to passing that first hurdle. Not a done deal yet, as we say. But if it does, the U.S. Congress, the House and the Senate will get a chance to review, 60 days, in fact, before giving its blessing or a rejection.

[13:05:14] Delaware Democrat Senator Chris Coons is joining us right now. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What are you hearing, Senator? Deal or no deal?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE: Well, Wolf, I think all of us, at this point, are hearing strong rumors that will soon be a final agreement. And I am eager, as are many of my colleagues, to dig into the details to review this, roughly, hundred-page document and to get briefings, both public hearings on the foreign relations committee and classified briefings from the administration, from outside experts, from some of our very concerned allies.

The administration may be at the very last stage of its long pursuit of an effort to freeze Iran's nuclear weapons program. Now, Congress gets to have its say.

And as you just said in your conversation with Christiane Amanpour, I am gravely concerned about what Iran may well do with the 10s of billions of dollars of Iranian frozen assets that they may get access to once they comply with the terms of this agreement. I'm concerned that --

BLITZER: Are you OK --

COONS: -- they're going to buy weapons and spread terrorism in the region.

BLITZER: Senator, sorry for interrupting but are you OK lifting that U.N. arms embargo against Iran? That seems to be the last major hurdle right now, or at least one of the mass -- last major hurdles.

COONS: I am not. That's not something I've been consulted on. And I, frankly, think it was an Iranian gambit at the last minute to try and divide the United States and its European allies from China and Russia which have a desire to sell weapons to Iran. I think Iran's behavior in the region, its support for terrorism and its export of weapons and material and fighting men to support Bashar al Assad's murderous regime in Syria, to support the Houthis in Yemen and to support Hezbollah.

And Lebanon should be of real concern to us. This was supposed to be a negotiation about their illicit nuclear weapons program. And to throw on the table, at the last minute, a lifting of the arms embargo strikes me as trying to broaden the scope of the negotiations.

And I hope to discover that the agreement, should there be one finally, should it be presented to us by the administration, I hope to find that that agreement is tough and enforcement, that it has a strong inspections regime, and that it only gives sanctions relief as Iran comes into compliance with the agreement. But none of us knows the terms of the deal yet. We haven't seen any text yet. And I very much look forward to digging into those details in the next 60 days.

BLITZER: One of the top Israeli opposition leaders, Yair Lapid, who opposes the Netanyahu government, he also opposes any Iran deal right now. And he says, according to the agreement, and I'll put it up on the screen what he said according to the agreement. If the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency suspect that the Iranians are cheating and they want to carry out an inspection, then they will need to give 20 -- need to give notice 24 days in advance to a committee.

And even if it's approved, they can't go unsupervised into the site. That's not supervision, that's a joke and it's a regime which constantly cheats. That from Yair Lapid. Is that 24-day notice for so-called snap inspections, if in fact that's part of the deal, acceptable to you?

COONS: Well, it depends, Wolf, on what input I'm going to get from our intelligence service and from the administration about what they believe they can accomplish on a 24-day period. That's the first time I've heard that specific time frame. I recognize that for us to inspect sites in Iran on 24-hour notice or 72-hour notice is not technically likely or logistically practical. But to push it out towards 24 days or 30 days or 60 days, I would be gravely concerned about.

So, look, this is just speculation about what the terms are for the inspection regime. That's one of the most important parts of this deal. It will be very closely scrutinized.

In order for me to sign off on any such agreement, I would have to be fully briefed and informed and then convinced that we've got an inspection regime that will work. Previous experiences with our efforts to try and prevent North Korea and Pakistan from getting nuclear weapons were clearly unsuccessful.

So, we have to have a stronger, broader and more unstoppable inspection regime here given that we know Iran has a past history of cheating and given that we know the consequences of failing to catch them at cheating or trying to sneak out of this agreement would be so grave. So, that's a key part of this agreement, and I'll look at it closely, Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm sure you will. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Thanks, Senator, very much.

COONS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Up next, much more on these Iran talks. We're going to take a closer look at why Iran wants that arms embargo lifted before moving ahead with a final agreement. What other countries would benefit?

[13:10:03] And later, how one of the world's most notorious drug lords managed to escape from a so-called maximum security prison for the second time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: All right, let's get back to the top story, the nuclear talks with Iran. The deadline less than five hours away but Iran's chief negotiator says there won't be a deal today. It seems the talks have boiled down to at least one remaining issue, a United Nations arms embargo.

Let's discuss that and more. Joining us, our Global Affairs Correspondent Elise Labott, the former State Department nuclear negotiator and ambassador to Greece, by the way, former ambassador, Nicholas Burns. The -- from London, joining us, former assistant director Jamie Rubin and from New York, Bobby Ghosh, our CNN Global Affairs Analyst, the managing editor of "Quartz."

So, let's start off with this tweet, Elise, Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, so-called moderate. He tweets a little while ago, hashtag Iran deal, is the victory in diplomacy and mutual respect over the outdated paradigm of exclusion and cohesion, and this is a good beginning. He then go ahead and deletes that tweet. What's going on?

[13:15:12] ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, there were a lot of signs last night and today that there was going to be a deal and you saw this morning the top U.N. E.U. diplomat giving the thumb's up. There were a lot of signals that we were waiting for an announcement later today. But there are still some last-minute details that need to be worked out. We're talking about the lifting of the U.N. arms embargo, particularly the ballistic missile issue, and also the access that IAEA inspectors can have to Iran.

Now, you know, one of the analysts I was talking to today called it -- compared it to, they've bought the house but now they're just negotiating closing costs. These are surmountable, I'm told, issues, but they're not insignificant. And when you have an 100-page agreement of this nature, every word is being pored over. And when you change one word, it changes the whole meaning of the document, so they'll have some work left to do.

BLITZER: You know what, I want to quickly go to the White House briefing. They're talking about Iran right now. They're asking the press secretary questions. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard to know what is -- what is actually being agreed upon and what is not being agreed upon. And I guess I don't have a great sense of why the president feels like another two days, another three days will close, you know, close the door on all these issues that have been (ph) open (ph) for months.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes. It's an entirely legitimate question. The chief obstacle, then, to us providing greater insight about what is exactly occurring behind closed doors is this key tenet of our talks that we've been repeating for a couple of years now, which is that nothing is agreed to until everything's agreed to. So --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I guess I'm asking -- not even in terms of specifics, but is -- is it that he is seeing the Iranians make concessions on the issues? What is it -- what is it that he's seen from the Iranians that leads him to believe they would continue to move closer to the U.S. position if you just keep this going?

EARNEST: Yes. Well, I think because as the -- as the negotiations have gone on over the last couple of weeks, what started out as a rather long list of differences has slowly -- I would acknowledge slowly -- but steadily narrowed. And that's an indication that we are making progress toward an agreement and that's why I would describe talks as making genuine progress.

But what's also true is that typically some of the more -- some of the most difficult issues are the ones that get kicked to the end. And that's why the president is going to resist any effort to sort of fast forward through the closing here. There continue to be significant issues that remain and the president will not sign on to agreement -- and this is the -- this is the attitude that's taken by our P5 plus one partners, too. They're not going to sign on to an agreement until all of our concerns have been addressed. And as long as they continue to make progress in doing that, then the talks will -- will continue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has the president had any conversations with Secretary Kerry over the last few days or over the weekend?

EARNEST: Well, the president has been in touch with his national security advisor, Susan Rice, and she has been the one that has been principally updating him a couple times a day about the status of the talks. Those briefings for the president occurred even over the weekend, or those updates to the president occurred even over the weekend. And I know the president has been in touch with the -- with the negotiating team in Vienna as well. There's -- there have not been any secure video teleconferences since the one that we announced last week. But the president is very well aware of -- very well aware of where things stand.

OK, Julia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Josh, with no firm deadline in place on these talks, do you have any idea of when the interim agreement may be lifted?

EARNEST: Well, the --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).

EARNEST: So the -- the issue is this, is that the interim agreement has been extended two or three days at a time, two or three times now. The latest short term extension is up at the end of the day today. If the talks are not completed today, then the interim agreement will be extended again. And this is by, you know, essentially by the -- as a result of the unanimous view that this interim agreement has been helpful. And I know that's true of many Republicans in Congress who originally criticized the interim agreement. It also happens to be the view of our P5 plus one partners and of Iran. And so there is a unified commitment to making sure that that interim agreement remains in place, but the whole idea of an interim agreement is it remains in place only until a final agreement can be reached. And so what we would envision is a final agreement that would enter into effect to replace the interim agreement. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, but I imagine it's not indefinite. I mean

what would have to happen to lift that and would it be that walking away from these talks?

[13:20:07] EARNEST: Well, again, I wouldn't want to speculate about what's going to happen or what would happen if one party or another were to walk away from the talks. What we know is that the interim agreement has been useful while the talks have been ongoing to freeze Iran's nuclear program in place and to roll it back in some key areas.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And then will this be for another three days each time or will it -- is it indefinitely extended?

EARNEST: Well, if there is a need to extend the interim agreement, even for a short-term period, that's an announcement that would be made by the United States and our P5 plus one partners in Vienna. That's not something I will announce here. What I'm merely trying to project here is confidence that if a final agreement is not reached by the end of the day today, that all of the parties will agree to at least a short term extension of the interim agreement to allow the conversations to continue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Shifting to criminal justice, I know the president's traveling to Philadelphia tomorrow where he'll talk to the NAACP and lay out his ideas for criminal justice reform. And he said today that many of those ideas have already come up in Congress. And also there have been many ideas that have come up and been stalled, even when Democrats had control of the Senate last year. Why does he think that anything might be different now? What are the chances of getting something through like the (INAUDIBLE) sentencing act?

EARNEST: Well, to be -- to be blunt about it, because Republicans are indicating an openness to doing it. Democrats have long been strong advocates of criminal justice reform.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to break away from Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, and get back to him, but the news obviously significant. It looks like if there's no deal today, and the anticipation was broad that there would be some sort of dramatic, historic announcement of a deal involving Iran's nuclear program, if it's not going to happen today, clearly the U.S. is willing to continue another day or two or three or whatever it takes if they're close. Clearly they're close.

I want to get back to Jamie Rubin, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state.

Jamie, if the issue right now, one of the final stumbling block is lifting that U.N. arms embargo allowing Iran, which will -- getting a huge influx of cash over the coming months and years, to go ahead and start buying weapons from China and Russia. That's something clearly the U.S. is not anxious to see given the fact that the U.S. still considers Iran to be a state sponsor of terrorism. Is this a deal breaker in the works right now? In other words, if that is the final issue that Iran is demanding, could this collapse this entire negotiation? JAMIE RUBIN, FMR. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I would call it

a major issue and I think it cuts to the core of what I think the administration's mistake in presentation has been. This is an arms control agreement, a nuclear arms control agreement. It's not going to change American/Iranian relations. Suggestions coming out of Washington, the White House, that this is part of a breakthrough in U.S./Iranian relations I think is a mistake to project. We don't know whether Iran will follow up its concessions on the nuclear issue with real change in its behavior in Lebanon and Syria and that's where the arms embargo comes in.

Let me be clear, though, that is a sanction. And the reason why it's so hard to solve this problem is the arms embargo was placed on Iran because of its nuclear program. And if the nuclear program issue is resolved, the Iranians are saying, well, then why should they be treated any differently than any other country.

BLITZER: All right.

RUBIN: But that's the essential issue. Do you think of this as a nuclear arms control agreement or do you project it as some grand historic breakthrough in U.S./Iranian relations? I think it should be the form and too much of the discussion has been about the latter.

BLITZER: All right, stand by, Jamie. Everyone, stand by. I want to quickly go back to the White House because there's other news, the president issuing a series of commutations for drug dealers, arrested drug dealers. I want to listen in to what Josh Earnest, the press secretary, is saying.

EARNEST: The Obama administration on this issue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if you look at the numbers, the president is behind some of his predecessors in this category in terms of commutations and pardons, although it appears he's doing some catching up. Is this something that we should see -- of that we might see accelerate over his remaining time in office?

EARNEST: Well, what I would say, Jim, in terms of raw numbers of commutations, the announcement today of 46 commutations is actually the largest number of commutations that's been issued by a president on a single day dating back to at least the Johnson administration. And this brings to, I believe it's 89, that's the number of people who have received a commutation from the president of the United States, and that actually is more than the number of commutations issued by the four previous presidents combined. So the president --

BLITZER: All right, getting a little flavor of what's going on at the White House on these 46 drug commutations for -- or people engaged in drug offenses.

I want to get back to what's going on in Iran, because it's obviously a significant moment. Ambassador Nick Burns, a former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, you're watching what's going on. What's your gut tell you, deal or no deal? [13:25:04] NICHOLAS BURNS, PROFESSOR, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL OF

GOV'T.: Well, my gut tells me there's going to be a deal tomorrow. But, you know, Wolf, it's not surprising. The final yards, the final meters are always the most difficult. We see that in many negotiations.

I think this issue of the arms embargo is a very important issue in two respects. One, Iran is making a major push for power in the Sunni world right now, Senator Coons said it, in Yemen, in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. This is not the time to lift the arms embargo.

The administration also needs to look beyond Vienna to the U.S. Congress in that 60 day review. Members of Congress aren't going to want to see the United States give up on arms embargoes that President Bush and President Obama have instituted through the United Nations Security Council in Iran. So I think we have to hold the line here. If the deal is the embargoes can be lifted some years from now, well, that might be acceptable. But right now, I don't see it happening.

BLITZER: Bobby Ghosh, what's your analysis of what's going on right now? And specifically this notion that the Iranians, as part of an IAEA inspection regime, would get 24 days' notice in advance before any international inspectors could go in. That's been out there. The Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid saying that today. Is that a deal breaker potentially, 24 days' notice?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well it sounds like an awful lot but, of course, those sites will be watched very carefully from the outside and if they try to move things around, there must be ways -- I presume that there are way ways to keep a close eye on that. The senator who has sort of hinted that there might be some technological areas that we can apply there.

But the arms embargo seems to me to be a much, much more likely deal breaker. It seems absurd at this point when Iran is participating in so many different disruptive things around the Islamic world, especially in the Middle East, that we should -- that the U.S. should now say it's OK for Iran to go out and buy ballistic missiles. It's not -- it's not just about Iran anymore, it's about -- about those missiles ending up in the hands of Bashar al Assad in Syria with which to kill even more hundreds of thousands of his people. And that's just one example of what's going to happen to weapons when they land up in Iranian hands.

BLITZER: All right, I want to -- I want to have all -- everyone stand by because we're going to continue to monitor what's going on.

But also coming up, as we just mentioned, President Obama commutes the sentences of more than 40 drug offenders here in the United States. I want to go into -- back to the White House to find out what's going on, on this front and much more right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)