Founding Director, Baker Institute for Public Policy | Baker Institute Board of Advisors, Life Member
Founding director Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian has joined eight former U.S. ambassadors to Israel and former under secretaries of state in urging Congress to support the interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
“We are persuaded that this agreement arrests Iran’s nuclear program for the first time in nearly a decade and opens the possibility of ultimately stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability,” the diplomats wrote in a Dec. 3, 2013, letter to the leadership of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
“More than any other option, a diplomatic breakthrough on this issue will help ensure Israel’s security and remove the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to the region generally and Israel specifically,” the signers conclude.
The letter was signed by six former ambassadors who served under every president from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, as well as by four former under secretaries of state. In addition to Djerejian, a former ambassador to Israel and to Syria, they are:
Michael Armacost, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Nicholas Burns, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
William Harrop, former Ambassador to Israel
Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel
Samuel Lewis, former Ambassador to Israel
Thomas R. Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and former Ambassador to Israel
Edward S. Walker Jr., former Ambassador to Israel
Frank G. Wisner, former Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
