Senate prepares to debate Iran sanctions despite 'risk to negotiations' Iran has consistently warned that any further sanctions would cause it to abandon the negotiations. An Iranian parliamentary committee said that diplomacy would be "unnecessary and meaningless" if Congress took this step and "under such circumstances we would abandon the talks." The White House says the aim of any interim deal in Geneva this week would be to freeze Iran's nuclear programme for about six months and buy time for final settlement. But senior Republican senators wrote to President Barack Obama last week warning that the US was "forfeiting our diplomatic leverage" by offering sanctions relief worth perhaps $20 billion in return for what they believed were minimal concessions over the nuclear programme. The White House is against more sanctions at this moment and Mr Obama was due to meet senior senators today to press the administration's case. On Monday night, senior Republican Senate aides made clear their determination to push ahead with a sanctions amendment. "Clearly the US and Iran are sharing talking points to intimidate the Congress," said one aide. A true Western leader would call their bluff and see if they really want their economy to collapse just to continue violating UN Security Council resolutions. The timing remained fluid, but both Democrat and Republican aides said they expected the sanctions to be debated in the next few days as an amendment to the annual defence bill, which must pass because it funds the US military. At the behest of the White House, Democrats have held up an existing sanctions bill in the Senate banking committee. Republicans are using the defence bill to circumvent that block. Republican aides say they were convinced that if a sanctions amendment was put to a vote, they could muster the 60 votes necessary to secure its passage. However, a compromise possibility was that Democrat leaders would allow a sanctions amendment to be attached to the defence bill, but for debate to be delayed until Friday, when the Geneva meeting is due to finish. Just as Mr Obama faces hawks in Congress, so Mr Rouhani has hardline critics in Iran who question the value of any contact with the West and argue that America will never lift sanctions even if a compromise is reached over the nuclear programme.