Iran nuclear talks resume
The first Iran nuclear negotiations are due to get underway in Vienna April 22-23 since a framework deal was reached April 2, amid debate in capitals about the provisional accord. US officials say rapid progress was made in the last few months, but two issues still need to be finalized.
WASHINGTON — Negotiators from Iran and six world powers resume talks in Vienna this week for the first time since the reaching of a framework deal April 2 that has set off debate and some confusion over seemingly conflicting interpretations about the provisional accord.
US and Iran officials have expressed confidence that the understandings reached to date are solid, even as they acknowledge the parties choose to present them differently given domestic political considerations. They also stress there are still a couple issues yet to be resolved, including the timetable for lifting sanctions, and access and procedures for monitoring aspects of Iran’s program under a final deal.
“How sanctions are lessened, how we snap back sanctions if there’s a violation, there are a lot of different mechanisms and ways to do that,” President Barack Obama told journalists at the White House April 18. “Part of John [Kerry’s] job and part of the Iranian negotiators’ job … is to sometimes find formulas that get to our main concerns while allowing the other side to make a presentation to their body politic that is more acceptable.”
In a demonstration of the kind of creative diplomacy Obama recognized as being necessary to conclude a deal acceptable to domestic constituencies on both sides, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemingly smoothed over what some interpreted as an Iranian insistence that all sanctions be terminated on day one of a final deal, while distancing himself from a US fact sheet on the framework deal.
