| AoS update at 0940 CT: David Gerstman at William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection has a piece on this that is worth your review. |
The Obama administration is hoping to rapidly secure a deal with Iran that would temporarily freeze the country's nuclear program and buy time for diplomats to try to hammer out a more comprehensive agreement restricting Tehran's future ability to seek atomic weapons, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
| Let's get Jahwn right on it... |
A proposal to be formally presented to Iran during negotiations this week would likely require the Islamic republic to suspend its production of enriched uranium and agree to additional curbs, concessions that would be rewarded with a modest, temporary easing of financial sanctions, according to a senior U.S. official knowledgeable about the plan.
While key details remained unclear,
| ...they usually do, which is why the deals go nowhere... |
the proposal reveals the contours of a path that officials hope will lead to a resolution of the 10-year standoff over Iran's nuclear policies. The plan has the backing of five other world powers involved in the talks with Iran, and the key points have been shared with Iranian officials during technical talks, diplomats said.
The proposed freeze, if accepted, would be the first stage in a multiple-step process that could culminate in an agreement early next year on permanent limits to Iran's ability to produce the components of a nuclear bomb, the U.S. official said. Whether Iran would agree to the concessions will be a key topic during talks set to begin Thursday in Geneva.
| So in other words we demand that Iran give up its top policy initiative in return for .. nothing of substance. Sure, that's going to work. Ah, diplomacy... |
"What we're looking for now is a first phase, a first step, an initial understanding that stops Iran's nuclear program from moving forward for the first time in decades, and that potentially rolls part of it back," said the U.S. official in a briefing to journalists on the eve of the talks. The official said the United States and its allies were looking to "put time on the clock" by ensuring that Iran's nuclear program does not advance while the negotiations are underway.
| Wasn't the time for that back in 2009? After all the Iranians have had four years to work on the various parts of the problem. It's just engineering, it's not like they need to invent new science. Put reasonably smart people on the project and let them work and they'll eventually solve the problems. |
The White House is under pressure to show substantial progress during this week's talks, as skeptics in Congress have threatened to impose harsh new financial sanctions on Iran even as the negotiations are under way. Administration officials met with key lawmakers last week urging them to delay any decisions on new sanctions until the first of the year.
| Didn't we already do that? Or is this going to be the equivalent of "double secret probation"? |
The U.S. official in Geneva said an Iranian agreement to freeze its nuclear program would result in "limited, targeted and reversible" relief on some economic sanctions, for a limited period of perhaps six months. The easing of sanctions would be reversed if Iran failed to honor its commitments, or if there was no progress in the effort to achieve a broader nuclear agreement. The toughest sanctions affecting Iran's banking sector and oil exports would not be lifted until the final stage of the process, Western officials said.
| We did a trial run of something like this on North Korea a few years back. Worked well, too, the Norks completely gave up on getting nuclear weapons, ev'ryone knows that... |
Diplomats from Iran and a bloc of six world powers are meeting in Geneva for the second time since the June election that swept moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani into power on a promise to end Iran's diplomatic isolation. Iran's newly appointed foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told a French broadcaster Tuesday that he believed a deal could be reached to win sanctions relief for Iran while easing international concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions. |