Roundup: Obama urges Congress to support his Iran, Cuba policies

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged the Republican-controlled Congress to support his initiatives on the Iranian nuclear issues and ties with Cuba.

"Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we've halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material," said Obama in his second-to-last State of Union speech.

"But new sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails."

Obama vowed to veto any new sanctions bill and said if diplomacy failed because of new sanctions, it would alienate the U.S. from its allies and lead Iran to restart its nuclear program.

U.S. lawmakers have so far finished a new bipartisan bill on Iran sanctions and the Senate intends to vote on it well before current rounds of international nuclear talks ends in June despite Obama's warning that such bill would scuttle talks underway to prevent Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.

It was not the first time that Obama made public his decision to veto any Iran sanctions bill. Last week at a joint press conference with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron, a stern-looking Obama warned that the failure to reach a nuclear deal due to Congress sanction bill may lead to military alternatives.

"Congress should be aware that if this diplomatic solution fails, then the risks and likelihood that this ends up being at some point a military confrontation is heightened," he said. "Congress will have to own that as well."

Although the new Congress bill stipulated that new sanctions would kick off only after all parties involved in the current nuclear talks failed to strike a deal beyond the deadline of June 30, Obama said the passing of such bill, which recently pit the White House against the U.S. Congress, would be used by the Iranians to blame the United States for "operating in bad faith" and to step away from the current talks.

The squabble over the new sanction bill was the latest of a series of issues which reflected hostility between the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress.

In a closed-door session with Senate Democrats on Thursday, Obama reportedly promised to stand firm against Republican efforts to dismantle his agenda and urged his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes.

Meanwhile, hailing the return of Alan Gross, a U.S. contractor jailed in Cuba for five years, Obama urged Congress to further ease sanctions on Cuba in his second-to-last State of Union speech on Tuesday.

"When what you're doing doesn't work for fifty years, it's time to try something new," Obama said. "Our shift in Cuba policy has the potential to end a legacy of mistrust in our hemisphere."

The State Department announced Tuesday an engagement mission later this week by top U.S.diplomat for Latin America Roberta Jacobson with the Cuban government to discuss re-establishing diplomatic relations, with the goal of reopening embassies in each other's capitals as the first step to end their half-century enmity.

The Departments of Treasury and Commerce on Thursday announced regulatory amendments to sanctions on Cuba following the U.S. president's last year's announcement of a set of diplomatic and economic changes to chart a new course in U.S. relations with Cuba.

However, Republican leaders in two Congress Houses have threatened to frustrate key elements of Obama's plans by curtailing funding for a possible new embassy and blocking the appointment of an American ambassador to Cuba. Endi