(JTA) — Twenty-nine top U.S. scientists praised the Iran nuclear deal in a letter to President Barack Obama.

Signers of the letter, which was sent Friday, include high-level nuclear scientists, physicists and Nobel laureates, The New York Times reported.

Among them are Richard Garwin, a physicist who helped design the world’s first hydrogen bomb and a Washington adviser on nuclear weapons and arms control, and Siegfried Hecker, who directed the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico.

“This is an innovative agreement, with much more stringent constraints than any previously negotiated non-proliferation framework,” read the letter, which said the deal “will advance the cause of peace and security in the Middle East and can serve as a guidepost for future nonproliferation agreements.”

“We congratulate you and your team on negotiating a technically sound, stringent and innovative deal that will provide the necessary assurance in the coming decade and more that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, and provides a basis for further initiatives to raise the barriers to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and around the globe,” the letter concluded.

Obama is lobbying Congress to approve the deal and has vowed to use his presidential veto to secure the agreement reached last month between six world powers and Iran. The deal provides economic sanctions relief for Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.

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