White House to Release Iran Implementation Agreement

The White House plans to release a summary of the implementation agreement to the interim nuclear deal between world powers and Iran later Thursday.

The full text, which instructs the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) how to implement the deal, has also been made available to a restricted audience of lawmakers and aides in Congress, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The move came after U.S. officials were forced to deny claims that there was a secret side deal accompanying the interim nuclear pact reached in Geneva last year.

"Today we provided Congress with the document containing the technical understandings related to the implementation of the Joint Plan of Action," Carney said.

The IAEA wants to keep certain aspects of the deal, to curb parts of Iran's nuclear program in return for limited sanctions relief, confidential, Carney said.

"However, in fulfillment of our commitment to release as much of the information in the text as possible to the public -- in addition to providing the full text to the Congress -- we will release a detailed summary of the text publicly today."

Opponents of the interim nuclear deal between the P5+1 group of powers and Iran warn that it gave up too much to Iran in return for too limited commitments to slow its nuclear activity.

The White House has been fighting a tough political battle against hawkish senators from Republican and Democratic parties who want to slap new sanctions on Iran despite warnings from Obama that they could force Tehran to walk away from talks on a permanent deal to end its nuclear program.

The P5+1 group includes the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

The interim deal, meant to buy time for detailed negotiations on ending what the West sees as Theran's drive for nuclear weapons, will go into force on January 20.