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At the same time Secretary of State John Kerry is warning that terrorists are fueling unrest across Iraq and Syria, he is now reaching out to a country his own department for decades has singled out as one of the prime sponsors of terrorism.

"You have a forest fire that's raging and you're calling in some of the arsonists ... to discuss the best way to put it out," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group. "It's mind-numbing."

Sawsan Jabri, spokeswoman for the anti-Assad, U.S.-based Syrian Expatriates Organization, cited Iran's continued support of the Syrian government "with weaponry and fighters" in questioning Kerry's comments.

Secretary of State John Kerry urged members of Congress Tuesday not to pursue tougher sanctions against Iran

"Believe me, we are all skeptical," Kerry told members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. "But we now have the best chance we've ever had" to negotiate a comprehensive agreement with Iran.

"We're asking you to give our negotiators and our experts the time and the space to do their jobs," Kerry said. That means "to hold off with new sanctions while we negotiate. I'm not saying never. I'm just saying not right now."

Iran can produce fissile material for an atomic weapon in two months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday told a Senate hearing

"I think it's public knowledge today that we're operating with a time period for a so-called breakout of about two months. That's been in the public domain," Kerry testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

"So six months to 12 months is - I'm not saying that's what we'd settle for, but even that is significantly more," Kerry said in response to a question about whether a "breakout" window of up to a year was the negotiators' goal.

Mr. Zarif later said on a public panel that Iran “will go to those negotiations with the political will and good faith to reach an agreement.”

Mr. Kerry “reiterated the importance of both sides negotiating in good faith”

Mr. Zarif said publicly that Iran wanted to negotiate seriously for as long as necessary, which could take longer than six months, and he offered to begin a dialogue on human rights issues with the European Union.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that any deal negotiated with Iran will be “failsafe” and will guarantee that Tehran will not have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons.

Kerry said he told Netanyahu that the U.S. and Israel both agree that Iran should not be allowed to become a nuclear-armed nation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “every right” to voice his opposition to a potential nuclear deal with Iran but his fear that a deal would leave Israel vulnerable is unfounded, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday.

Kerry said he would probably not be able to travel to Israel at the end of the week as he had tentatively planned to do.

Netanyahu announced on Sunday that Kerry would be visiting Israel on Friday, but Kerry said his schedule would not allow for it.

Kerry said at a news conference here after a meeting with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and the Japanese defense and foreign ministers,

Kerry Says Talks With Iran Will Not Be Based on Trust

we are also learning more about the inspections Kerry bragged about, and these details give the lie to his assurances.

But, like the deal itself, the inspections regime turns out to be nothing more than what one nuclear inspector described to the Times as “an appetizer.” While the inspectors will be able to look in on the centrifuges that continue to enrich uranium–a “right” to tacitly acknowledged by the West in the deal–it says nothing about the regime’s military research that is necessary for it to complete a bomb. Without such inspections, the notion that the West has any real idea about how close the Iranians are to a bomb is a joke. Far from making it harder for them to achieve their nuclear ambition, the interim accord is, like previous negotiations, enabling Tehran to go on pursuing it.

Geneva deal does allow the IAEA to make daily visits to Iran’s enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow

When the talks adjourned, “we were very, very close — actually, extremely close,” Kerry said in a Monday interview with the BBC. “We were separated by four or five different formulations of a particular concept” that the Iranians said required consultations with Tehran. But he said none was so crucial “that I don’t think it’s possible to reach agreement.”

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry delivered an ardent defense Monday of President Obama as a strong foreign policy leader and “man of his word,” whose guarantee that Iran will never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon should be heeded by doubters.

High-level negotiations over the weekend in Geneva were suspended, Kerry said, after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he needed further consultations with Tehran.

the latest chapter in what critics see as Obama’s history of foreign policy weakness, beginning with U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and extending through his reluctance to intervene in Syria’s civil war.

Kerry said he hoped that "Iran will understand the importance of coming there prepared to create a document that can prove to the world this is a peaceful program."

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Kerry is open to participating in the upcoming talks "only if it makes sense" but will not decide until the talks get underway.

But lawmakers and aides said no such action was expected until after senators come back on December 2 from next week's Thanksgiving recess."I don't see anything happening until we get back," Senator Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.

The interim agreement signed in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 powers is a bad deal. This agreement does not remove one centrifuge from Iran. Instead, we are beginning to see the dismantling of the very sanctions framework that forced the ayatollahs to finally come to the table in the first place. More importantly, a firm and clear ultimatum has not been made to the Iranians so that they understand what the repercussions will be if they do not fully dismantle their nuclear military program when the current deal expires in six months.

What I can say is that this ultimatum could be a particular point in the development of their nuclear program that the world will not allow them to reach, or it could be a date on the calendar by which point they must commit to completely dismantle their nuclear program or face the severe consequences. Either way it must be understood by the Iranians beyond a doubt that the international community will act harshly once this moment in time has arrived.

Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate committee Tuesday that the Obama administration is “obligated under the law” to earn congressional approval of any nuclear deal with Iran in order for congressionally-imposed economic sanctions to be lifted.

"The United States will be there for the defense of our friends and our allies," Kerry told reporters in Cairo. "We will not allow those countries to be attacked from outside. We will stand with them."

"Iran will not get a nuclear weapon," he said. "That is a promise by the president of the United States."

The semiofficial Fars news agency criticized the "destructive roles of France and Israel" for the failure of negotiators to reach an interim deal and ran a caricature of France as a frog firing a gun. "By shooting he feels he is important," the commentary said.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted that France "had the courage to prevent a bad nuclear agreement with Iran. Vive la France!"

Alireza Nader, a Middle East specialist at Rand Corp., said he believes multiple motives may be involved, including France's desire to halt nuclear proliferation but also interests in selling arms to Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in the Persian Gulf that fear Iran's regional power and would appreciate the French stand.

temporarily freeze much of Tehran’s nuclear program starting next Monday, Jan. 20, in exchange for limited relief

the United States and Iran have sought to insulate the nuclear negotiations from the tensions over Iran’s regional policies.

“While implementation is an important step, the next phase poses a far greater challenge,” Mr. Kerry said in a statement.

"Secretary Kerry reiterated the importance of both sides negotiating in good faith and Iran abiding by its commitments under the Joint Plan of Action. He also made clear that the United States will continue to enforce existing sanctions," a U.S. State Department official said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has told his French counterpart a trip to Iran by French business executives was "not helpful" and gave the wrong impression that Tehran was open for business as usual, a U.S. official said.

Among the companies represented were Safran, Airbus, Total, GDF-Suez, Renault, Alcatel, Alstom, and L'Oréal, a source close to the delegation said.

Kerry calls off visit to Israel, rejects Israel’s criticism of Iran deal

On Friday, Iranian diplomats said ‘considerable progress’ had been made.

The Chinese, French, British and German foreign ministers, Wang Yi, Laurent Fabius, William Hague and Guido Westerwelle, were due to take part in intense negotiations on a deal

France’s Foreign Minister, who spoke out against a draft deal floated at the November 7-9 negotiating round, appeared guarded on arrival in Geneva Saturday morning. "I hope we can reach a deal, but a solid deal. I am here to work on that," he said.