A senior U.S. lawmaker says Congress will not vote on new economic sanctions against Iran while international negotiations aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program continue.

U.S. Senator Bob Corker spoke Tuesday, shortly after a White House meeting with key Senate leaders. In that meeting, President Barack Obama asked that any new sanctions be delayed while nuclear talks set to resume Wednesday continue in Geneva.

Iran's Foreign Minister issued an internet video appealing the viewers to understand Tehran's insistence on a right to enrich uranium, and portraying the country as a champion of developing nations that want to stand up against world powers.

VOA Al Pessin has more.

Set by soothing music, the video opens with Zarif posing rhetorical questions.
 
“What is dignity? What is respect? Are they negotiable?" he asks. "Is there a price tag?”
 
Much of the five-minute video continues in that vein, with Zarif claiming insisting that Iranians consider uranium enrichment a right, and that Iran is asking only for the respect and dignity all other countries would expect.
 
Portraying Iran as a champion of the downtrodden, he says his country is standing up to “tyranny” and “demanding respect,” and that Iran is pursuing nuclear energy in order to determine its own destiny.

Al Pessin VOA News,Geneva.

The Afghan government says the United States has agreed not to let its forces raid and search the homes of ordinary Afghans under a proposed security agreement.
 
The U.S. assurance came during a telephone conversation between Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday.
 
Searches of Afghan homes by American forces had emerged as a sticking point in negotiations and threatened to derail the Bilateral Security Agreement, which will govern the presence of forces in Afghanistan after most foreign troops leave next year.

More than 20 people were killed Tuesday when Islamist militants attacked a police station in central Somalia.

Militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack in the town of Beledweyne.

A new forecast says that global economic growth has slowed this year and will not advance as fast as once thought for next year.