WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that the Obama administration would like to complete a nuclear deal with Iran despite Israel’s objections.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing the US Congress on Tuesday to warn against concluding the deal with Iran.

In an interview to ABC News “This Week” television show, Secretary Kerry said he and other senior US officials spoke to Israeli leaders regularly but they did not inform the administration of Mr Netanyahu’s plan to address Congress.

“Obviously, it was odd, if not unique, that we learned of it from the speaker of the House and that an administration was not included in this process,” he said. “But the administration is not seeking to politicise this.”

Mr Kerry also hoped that the Israeli prime minister’s speech would not turn into “some great political football”. He assured Israel that the Obama administration was committed to protecting it against any aggression and it would not allow a deal with Iran to create security problems for the Jewish state.

But the top US diplomat also strongly defended nuclear talks with Iran, saying that a final deal would make the region more secure.

Six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – are negotiating the deal with Iran, which offers economic incentives for capping the country’s nuclear programme.

The talks have now entered a critical phase as both sides are expected to thrash out a final agreement by March 31.

The Israeli prime minister, however, has rejected US assurances, saying that it would not prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons. He also warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would be an existentialist threat for Israel.

But Secretary Kerry argued that negotiations with Iran had reduced this threat. “It is better to do this by diplomacy than to have to do a strategy militarily, which you would have to repeat over and over again,” he said, adding: “Everybody believes (the military option) ought to be after you have exhausted all the diplomatic remedies.”

Mr Kerry recalled that when the negotiators concluded an interim agreement with Iran last year, many opposed it because they thought it would not work.

“The fact is, the interim agreement has been adhered to. It has been inspected. We have proven that we have slowed Iran’s – even set back – its nuclear programme. And we are going to continue now to the next step,” he said.

Secretary Kerry said that while he was not in a position to promise a success yet, it would show whether diplomacy could prevent Iran from making weapons.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2015

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