WarSclerotic

Iranians break off deadlocked nuclear talks to… attend Tehran funeral. Another pressure gambit, DEBKAfile, March 20, 2015

Nuclear talks reach deadlock

The Iranian delegation suddenly informed its US, British, French, Germany, Russian and Chinese counterparts Friday, March 20, that they were packing their bags and leaving Lausanne for Tehran later that day to attend the funeral of President Hassan Rouhani’s 90-year-old mother and would return next week.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry failed to break the impasse on a nuclear accord at their sixth meeting.

Iran’s national security chief Ali Akhbar Salehi was part of the delegation. Another delegation member, Hossein Fereydoun, Rouhani’s brother, left earlier.

The Iranians set no date for resuming the talks, although other sources mentioned Wednesday, March 25. Another sign of a crisis was the cancellation of a briefing Friday in Brussels of British, German, French and European Union leaders on progress in the negotiations, that was supposed to reflect progress toward a deal by the March 31 deadline.

An hour before France, Britain and Germany were to join the talks in Lausanne, the Iranians announced they were about to leave.

It was announced subsequently that Kerry would hold the cancelled Brussels briefing in France Saturday for officials rather than top leaders.

Speaking to Western news agencies Friday, Western and Iranian officials admitted that all the sides were very far apart. “We are not close to anything resembling a draft agreement,” said a European negotiator. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the length of an agreement, the pace of sanctions relief and international monitoring remain points of contention. No draft would be circulated until closer to the June 30 deadline for technical annexes, said the Russian official.

In other words, the March 31 deadline for a framework accord appeared to have gone by the board.

This entry was posted on March 20, 2015 at 6:44 PM and is filed under Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Free world, International Community, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Obama, P5+1. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Foreign Policy, Free world, International Community, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes