NUKE TALKS STALLING – AT 10:58 A.M. ET: France is balking at more concessions to the Iranians. The International Atomic Energy Agency says it's having difficulty getting accurate information from Iran on possible military uses for its atoms program. The nuclear talks have a deadline a month from now. There hasn't, apparently, been much progress. And now John Kerry will do some personal negotiating of his own. From AFP and AP:
Top US diplomat John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif began key nuclear talks in Geneva on Saturday ahead of a June 30 deadline to reach a historic deal.
Kerry and Zarif arrived simultaneously on the first floor of a leading Geneva hotel in opposite elevators and greeted each other with smiles and a handshake.
They chatted as they walked together along the corridor to the meeting room on the same floor.
Asked by a journalist, whether they expected to meet the nuclear negotiating deadline, Zarif smiled and said: “We will try.” Kerry did not respond.
After an interim accord hammered out in Geneva in November 2013, Washington and Tehran are grappling with the final details of the ground-breaking agreement that would see Iran curtail its nuclear ambitions in return for a lifting of crippling international sanctions.
World powers believe they have secured Iran’s acquiescence to a combination of nuclear restrictions that would fulfill their biggest goal: keeping Iran at least a year away from bomb-making capability for at least a decade. But they are less clear about how they’ll ensure Iran fully adheres to any agreement.
Various Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, have publicly vowed to limit access to or even block monitors from sensitive military sites and nuclear scientists suspected of previous involvement in covert nuclear weapons efforts.
The US says such access must be guaranteed or there will be no final deal. A report Friday by the UN nuclear agency declared work essentially stalled on its multiyear probe of Iran’s past activities.
COMMENT: It just isn't working out. The Iranian goal is clearly to have a weak deal with many holes in it, and a deal that will include the lifting of sanctions on Tehran. I have the sense that they're calculating that's exactly what they'll get because Obama is so desperate for an agreement.
I'm not sure they're right. France can block a weak deal, and seems ready to do so. So can Congress, if only by a symbolic vote. There is bipartisan opposition to a deal that doesn't include sufficient safeguards.
The next month is crucial. Waiting from the wings is Hillary Clinton, who will not be hurt by a bad deal in her quest for the Democratic nomination, the Democratic Party being what it is. But she may well be hurt in the general election campaign, when adults are allowed to vote.
May 30, 2015 |