Special to WorldTribune.com

A senior adviser to French President Francois Hollande reportedly said the rejection of the Iran nuclear agreement by the U.S. Congress could ultimately result in a better deal.

Jacques Audibert, the senior diplomatic adviser to French President Francois Hollande, has since denied the report in Bloomberg View that was seen as a direct contradiction of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s grim warnings of the consequences that would result if Congress rejects the deal.

“During the meeting with the members of the U.S. Congress on the 17th of July, I never said or suggested that a no vote from the Congress on the JCPOA might be helpful or lead to a better deal,” Audibert tweeted on July 31. “I insisted repeatedly on the fact that the deal itself was the best possible.”

Democrat Rep. Loretta Sanchez and Republican Rep. Mike Turner, members of the House Armed Services Committee, met with Audibert in Paris earlier to discuss the Iran agreement.

Both lawmakers said Audibert was supportive of the deal overall, “but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.”

“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told Bloomberg View.

“He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal,” Sanchez added.

Audibert also reportedly told the U.S. lawmakers that he believed the deal should have been permanent and not made to expire in as few as 10 years.

“He didn’t understand why Iran needed more than 5,000 centrifuges for a peaceful nuclear program,” the report said. Audibert also reportedly “expressed concerns about the robustness of the inspections and verification regime under the deal, according to the lawmakers.”

“We have Kerry saying the French are just going to bust in there and do this and this, and here we have somebody who seems to disagree with that,” Sanchez told Bloomberg View.

After returning from Paris, Rep. Turner is said to have confronted Kerry and questioned the secretary of state on Audibert’s belief that negotiators could have came away with a better deal.

“The secretary appeared surprised and had no good answer as to why the national security adviser of France had a completely different position than what the secretary told us the same day,” Turner told Bloomberg View.

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Kerry said if Congress rejects the agreement the U.S. would be isolated and the possibility of war would be “almost inevitable.”

“If we walk away, we walk away alone. Our partners are not going to be with us. Instead they’ll walk away from the tough multilateral sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place,” Kerry said.

  French official said, if Congress votes no, Jacque Audibert, John Kerry, Loretta Sanchez, Mike Turner, Report: U.S. could get better Iran deal, WorldTribune.com