GENEVA: The central riddle as we head to new talks here on Iran’s suspect nuclear program is that everything has changed, yet nothing has changed. Hopes have never been higher, but a deal is far from being done. September brought us a surprising “Iranian spring” in the crisis over fears Tehran seeks the bomb. The…
UNITED NATIONS: Iran’s charm offensive this week at the UN was spectacular. Iran went from being hardline and cantankerous to open and cooperative. The rogue state personified by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the good world citizen under new President Hassan Rouhani. The change in tone since Rouhani took office in August has been so…
UNITED NATIONS: The march towards a peaceful settlement in the Iranian nuclear crisis took an amazing step today when Iran agreed to a Thursday meeting that will bring together the foreign ministers of both the United States and Iran, the highest formal contacts between Iran and the United States since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Any potential…
Will Iran’s new president defuse the confrontation with the United States over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program? Hassan Rowhani, elected with a narrow 50.7 percent of the votes in Friday’s presidential election, inherits a dangerous stalemate. Iran is stonewalling on answering UN inspectors’ questions about possible military dimensions of its nuclear program, while talks with…
WASHINGTON: Long-awaited talks between the world’s six most powerful nations and Iran are set for February 26 in the mountain city of Almaty in Kazakhstan. The question is, are the two sides ready to bridge the considerable rift dividing them and actually negotiate? This has not happened in a decade of diplomacy that started in…
WASHINGTON: Is 2013 the big year for Iran? Many think a decade of confrontation over Iran’s nuclear progress will finally boil down to a stark binary choice of living with an Iranian atomic bomb or having to bomb the Islamic Republic to stop this. Time magazine’s international guru, Fareed Zakaria, claims this is the year…
UPDATE The United States and its five negotiating partners can’t decide how far to go in trying to entice Iran and time presses as Iran continues to amass significant nuclear stockpiles and capabilities. The Russians would like to offer sanctions relief, which is what the Iranians want. This would be in return for Iran ceasing…
WASHINGTON: Iran is at a crucial point in its nuclear negotiations with the United States and five other world powers. What it does on the diplomatic front and what it does with its disputed nuclear program are vacillating between the hardline and the conciliatory. This comes as the United States looks post-election for a fresh…
WASHINGTON: The United States and its allies would like to have a “face to face” meeting with Iranian officials before the end of the year, even as they struggle with just what to offer the Islamic Republic. Talks are going on now among the six countries negotiating with Iran – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia…
WASHINGTON: The news reports over the weekend that an agreement had been reached for direct Iran-US talks over Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons is one case where there is less than meets the eye. Even if the news does come on the eve of a crucial debate between US President Barack Obama and his…
Iran has significantly increased the amount of uranium it is enriching at a level close to weapon-grade and is sanitizing a site where it is suspected of doing bomb-related experiments, according to a classified UN nuclear watchdog report released Thursday and obtained by Breaking Defense. Iran continues to block inspectors from the International Atomic Energy…
UPDATED: Iran Nuclear Talks Continue Softly, Softly While Hopes Fade (July 24 18:21 EDT) Talks on the Iranian nuclear program continued at a low level Tuesday, even as prospects for a peaceful outcome grow increasingly grim. Senior-level, US-led negotiations to win guarantees that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons have foundered. Meanwhile, there are disturbing…
Talks with Iran on its nuclear work have continued but little progress has been made. A diplomat close to the lower-level meeting of technical experts in Istanbul last Tuesday told me “a large gap” remains between the positions of Iran and the six nations negotiating with it – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany…
A full monty of sanctions has gone into effect against Iran, the toughest regime of punitive measures since the Iranian nuclear crisis began a decade ago. The goal is to pressure the Islamic Republic to give the international community guarantees it will not make atomic weapons. A European Union embargo on buying Iranian oil became…
New Offer to Iran Doesn’t Look Like a Breakthrough; West Should Bend a Bit
UPDATE The United States and its five negotiating partners can’t decide how far to go in trying to entice Iran and time presses as Iran continues to amass significant nuclear stockpiles and capabilities. The Russians would like to offer sanctions relief, which is what the Iranians want. This would be in return for Iran ceasing…
By Michael Adler