Area residents lobby for diplomacy with Iran

Some area residents have been involved with discussions in Washington D.C. taking on a global issue.

Members of Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a nonpartisan Quaker lobbying group that focuses on peace, equity and the environment, traveled to Washington D.C. last month to lobby for diplomatic discussions with Iran over the country's nuclear capabilities.

Riverside resident Carole Winkleblack, a member of FCNL who attended the rally on Capitol Hill that brought out roughly 430 people from 43 states, said the discussion boils down to the hope that Iran would not possess nuclear weapons grade materials, while maintaining their nuclear power plant resources.

'What we all want is to have it so there is not a nuclear Iran, so they don't have a bomb or capacity to create a bomb,” she said. 'Negotiations are a much more pragmatic and better way to guard against a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Iowa City Rebecca Bergus said there still is much work to be done, but added that open communications between the U.S. and Iran is already a positive step in the right direction.

'It's pretty exciting,” she said. 'The talks are going forward and that's good ... It's nice that there is some communication and it is important to keep that up.”

Congressman Dave Loebsack, one of Iowa's lawmakers who have expressed support in continued communication with Iran over their nuclear capabilities, said in a statement to The Gazette that allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons is 'unacceptable.”

'The current extension of the talks with Iran must be met with clear indications that progress is being made toward signing a final agreement and not just a stalling tactic by the Iranians,” he said in the statement. 'Any eventual agreement must ultimately dismantle Iran's nuclear weapon program, be fully verifiable, and provide transparency into all aspects of their nuclear program.”

Winkleblack said FCNL members must continue to press their local legislators to take a stance on the issue.

'We have a democracy and the only way a democracy functions is that the constituents of that democracy are active,” she said.

l Comments: (319) 339-3175; mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com