[While Obama has strongly defended the "framework agreement", the Israeli regime has bitterly decried it; and it has a strong ally in the US Republicans. The deal has been celebrated by the Iranian public.]
I/IV. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/iran-nuclear-talks-150402172642660.html Obama hails 'historic' Iran nuclear agreement US, Iran and five other world powers seal framework agreement outlining limits on Iran's nuclear programme. 03 Apr 2015 04:49 GMT | Politics, Middle East Barack Obama called the agreement a "good deal" that would address concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions [AP] The United States, Iran and five other world powers have sealed a breakthrough framework agreement outlining limits on Iran's nuclear programme to keep it from being able to produce atomic weapons. Reading out a joint statement on Thursday evening, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said a "decisive step" has been achieved. US domestic debate on Iran deal "This is a crucial decision laying the agreed basis for the final text of joint comprehensive plan of action. We can now start drafting the text and annexes," said Mogherini, who has acted as a coordinator for the six powers - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. The US and Iran each hailed the efforts of their diplomats over eight days of marathon talks in Swiss city of Lausanne. Speaking at the White House, US President Barack Obama called it a "good deal" that would address concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions. The US president said that the US and its allies had "reached a historic understanding with Iran". Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called it a "win-win outcome". The Islamic Republic has been promised an end to years of crippling economic sanctions, but only if negotiators transform the plan into a comprehensive pact by June 30. 'Solid foundation' US Secretary of State John Kerry said the agreement in Lausanne was a "solid foundation for a good deal". Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from Lausanne, said that US diplomats still faced the challenge of convincing opposition Republican dissenters in Congress, and its strongest ally, Israel, that the deal was sufficient. "There are a lot of places where this deal will not be accepted and one of those is Israel," Bays said. Obama said his security officials would be working with Israel and Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to make sure their concerns are addressed. Iranians celebrate on a street in northern Tehran the nuclear agreement with world powers in Lausanne [The Associated Press] Israel voiced its "strong opposition" to the deal. In a phone conversation with Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a final deal based on this agreement "would threaten the survival of Israel". House Speaker John Boehner said it would be "naive to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear programme, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region." But Obama said that the issues at stake are "bigger than politics". "These are matters of war and peace," he said, and if Congress kills the agreement "international unity will collapse, and the path to conflict will widen." RELATED: Iranians expect big benefits if nuke talks succeed Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane explains Obama's take He's keeping sanctions in regard to human rights violations and funding of groups the US considers to be terrorists. The critics have said easing sanctions will give Iran more money to fund groups like Hezbollah. The biggest complaint from critics is that this only limits Iran for 10-15 years. The president made sure to say in his speech that Iran is a signatory to the NPT so that means they will never get a nuclear bomb. The president has the public on his side. Polls show the majority of Americans want a diplomatic solution. He is going to fight Congress by making the case to the American people if they vote down the deal they are voting for war. The deal will limit Iran's nuclear activity to the Natanz plant and reduce the number of centrifuges it operates from 19,000 today to just over 6,104. Iran has also agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years. Zarif said the countries had agreed an elaborate mechanism if any of the parties to the agreement "returned to old practices" and reneged on their obligations. "We will not allow excuses that will allow a return to the old system," Zarif said. Mogherini said the seven nations would now start writing the text of a final accord. She cited several agreed-upon restrictions on Iran's enrichment of material that can be used either for energy production or in nuclear warheads. She said Iran will not produce weapons-grade plutonium. Sanctions related to Iran's nuclear programmes would be suspended by the US, the United Nations and the European Union after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Iran's compliance. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies II/IV. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/02/world/iran-nuclear-talks/ Optimism as Iran nuclear deal framework announced; more work ahead By Elise Labott, Mariano Castillo and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN Updated 0209 GMT (0909 HKT) April 3, 2015 [Video] Lausanne, Switzerland (CNN)There are plenty of details left to iron out, but negotiators took a significant step Thursday toward a landmark deal aimed at keeping Iran's nuclear program peaceful. After a marathon stretch of late-night negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, diplomats announced they'd come up with the framework for an agreement that's been months in the making. Iran would reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98% and significantly scale back its number of installed centrifuges, according to the plan. In exchange, the United States and the European Union would lift sanctions that have crippled the country's economy. "It is a good deal, a deal that meets our core objectives," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a speech from the White House Rose Garden. "This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon." The deal would include strict verification measures to make sure Iran complies, he said. "If Iran cheats," Obama said, "the world will know it." Key points of the deal New chapter in U.S.-Iranian relations? The world powers involved in the talks with Iran were the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. For the United States and Iran, two countries with a long history of strained relations, the negotiations took on an added significance. Just two years ago, they hadn't talked with each other officially in nearly four decades. "I think there was a seriousness of purpose," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN in an interview shortly after the framework was announced. "People negotiated hard. It was tough, very intense at times, sometimes emotional and confrontational. It was a very intensive process, because the stakes are very high, and because there is a long history of not talking to each other. For 35 years, we haven't talked with the Iranians directly like this." On Thursday, Iranian state television broadcast Obama's speech live, something many Iranians described as unprecedented. Some Iranians marked the historic moment in U.S.-Iranian relations on Twitter by sharing "selfies" of themselves in front of the live Obama speech. But U.S. leaders were still talking tough, even as they praised the agreement. Kerry stressed that if a final deal is reached with Iran, the removal of any sanctions against Tehran will come in phases. "And if we find out at any point that Iran is not complying with the agreement, the sanctions can snap back into place," he said. Iran didn't seem to be changing its tune, either. "Iran-U.S. relations had nothing to do with this. This was an attempt to resolve the nuclear issue. ... We have serious differences with the United States," Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said after the deal's framework was announced, noting that "mutual mistrust" had been a serious problem in the talks. The preliminary agreement will not put an end to Iran's enrichment activities, Zarif said. "None of those measures include closing any of our facilities. The proud people of Iran would never accept that," he said. But he said Iran will abide by the agreement, which would limit enrichment activities to one location, he said. 21 questions on Iranian nuclear talks Will Congress block agreement? But work on the deal isn't finished. There's a June 30 deadline for coming up with a final agreement. In the United States, the Obama administration could face an uphill battle selling the deal to a skeptical Congress, which has threatened to impose new sanctions on Iran. Already, there were rumblings of the looming political fight. Kerry said he didn't believe Congress would block the deal, telling CNN it "would be very irresponsible to make politics trump facts and science and the realities of what is possible here." House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement that he was planning to stand strong and press the administration with tough questions. "The President says negotiators have cleared the basic threshold needed to continue talks, but the parameters for a final deal represent an alarming departure from the White House's initial goals," he said, arguing that Congress must review details of a deal before any sanctions are lifted. Obama warned leaders of Congress not to stop the deal. "If Congress kills this deal not based on expert analysis and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it's the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy," Obama said. "International unity will collapse." Netanyahu: Deal paves way for nuclear bomb Obama maintains the deal would shut down Iran's path to getting a nuclear bomb. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the opposite is true. "Such a deal would not block Iran's path to the bomb. It would pave it," he said in a statement. "It would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war." Netanyahu has been lobbying against an agreement since the talks began, warning U.S. lawmakers in a congressional address last month that Iran can't be trusted. Israeli government officials vowed to continue their push against what they called "a poor framework that will lead to a bad and dangerous agreement." "If an agreement is reached on the basis of this framework, it will result in a historic mistake that will make the world a far more dangerous place," the Israeli officials said in a statement. "This framework gives international legitimacy to Iran's nuclear program that aims only to produce nuclear bombs." Obama said that he was reaching out to Netanyahu to explain and defend the tentative framework. "If, in fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu is looking for the most effective way to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon, this is the best option," Obama said. Difficult negotiations Negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- plus Germany began in 2006 and have had a tortured history. Over the past nine years, the push and pull over Iran's nuclear program produced a bewildering array of proposals. Meanwhile, as talks dragged on, the United States, the European Union and others imposed sanctions on Iran, provoking resentment among Tehran's leaders, who called the sanctions a crime against humanity. The challenge all along was twofold: To assure the international community that Iran could not develop nuclear weapons (which it denied in any event that it was doing); and to accommodate the country's assertion of its right -- as a signer of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons -- to enrich nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The broad outlines of a deal seem to have been clear for some time. But the devil was in the details, and the numbers, timing, sequencing and verification procedures proved devilishly difficult to resolve. Until now. The 2013 election of Hassan Rouhani, a political moderate, to Iran's presidency infused the talks with new hope, though questions lingered over whether he could persuade the country's hard-liners to accept an agreement. U.S. leaders also were divided over the agreement as envisioned. In a March 9 letter signed by 47 Republican U.S. senators, Iran's leaders were warned that any deal not approved by the Senate could immediately be revoked by President Barack Obama's successor in 2017. Democrats denounced the sending of such a letter to foreign leaders as an unprecedented intervention in negotiations between the administration and another country. And Iran's leaders also dismissed the letter. CNN's Elise Labott reported from Lausanne and Mariano Castillo and Catherine E. Shoichet wrote the story in Atlanta. CNN's Don Melvin, Mark Bixler, Cynde Strand, Sarah Aarthun, Jedd Rosche, Jethro Mullen, Greg Botelho and Jim Sciutto contributed to this report. III/IV. http://rt.com/news/246297-iran-nuclear-talks-lausanne/ Tehran and world powers reach solutions on Iran nuclear program Published time: April 02, 2015 17:19 Edited time: April 02, 2015 23:18 EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini addresses during a joint statement with Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (R) in Lausanne April 2, 2015. (Reuters/Ruben Sprich) Iran and international powers have reached “solutions on key parameters” of Tehran’s nuclear program following eight-day talks in Switzerland, according to a joint statement issued by the negotiators on Thursday. During the media conference EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the deal achieved as a result of the talks creates the basis of a future comprehensive nuclear agreement between Iran and six powers which is to be concluded by a June 30 deadline. The agreement envisages the Fordow facility being converted into a nuclear physics center with no fissile material. It was agreed that the Natantz facility would remain as the only uranium enrichment complex in the country. Under the deal Tehran was obliged to refrain from creating nuclear weapons. "An international joint venture will assist Iran in redesigning and rebuilding a modernized Heavy Water Research Reactor in Arak that will not produce weapons grade plutonium. There will be no reprocessing and the spent fuel will be exported," according to the joint statement. [Video] US and EU are to lift Iran sanctions after the signing of the deal on June 30 and after IAEA verification, said Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. “The EU will terminate the implementation of all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions and the US will cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions, simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments,” the joint statement said. UN Security Council resolutions on Iran will be also terminated under the future comprehensive deal, Zarif added. “It will be an end to all UN resolutions against Iran,” Zarif said clarifying the exact numbers of the documents – from 1696 to 1929. “Iran and the US relations have nothing to do with this,” said Zarif answering a reporter’s question on the strained relations between the two countries. “We have built mutual mistrust in the past,” he said adding the he hopes “some of that mistrust could be remedied” through the implementation of the nuclear agreement. John Kerry ✔ @JohnKerry Big day: #EU, P5+1, and #Iran now have parameters to resolve major issues on nuclear program. Back to work soon on a final deal. 11:00 PM - 2 Apr 2015 4,128 RETWEETS 3,141 FAVORITES “We have discussed a reciprocal mechanism” if there is a “material breach” or significant “incompliance” with the agreement, he said. “The elaborate mechanism will not allow excuses,” he added. IAEA Director General, Yukiya Amano, has welcomed the framework nuclear deal saying that his agency “will be ready to fulfill its role in verifying the implementation of nuclear related measures, once the agreement is finalized.” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani earlier said on Twitter that drafting of the agreement is to start immediately, with a June 30 deadline for finishing the process. “Found solutions. Ready to start drafting immediately,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter ahead of the press conference on the results of the talks in Switzerland on Thursday. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has also stayed in Switzerland, said that the framework deal with Iran is a “big, decisive step forward.” P5+1 and Iran representative pose prior to the announcement of an agreement on Iran nuclear talks on April 2, 2015 at the The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne.(AFP Photo / Fabrice Coffrini ) The deal would help the security situation in the Middle East, partly because Tehran would now be able to take more active part in efforts to solve conflicts in the region, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the agreement brokered in Lausanne could “enable all countries to cooperate urgently to deal with the many serious security challenges they face.” Speaking at the White House on Thursday, US President Barack Obama said that a historic deal has been reached over Iran's nuclear deal. He said the deal is based not on trust, but on "unprecedented verification" and called it "the best deal by far." US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the deal by saying that a political understanding has been reached and it is a solid foundation for “good deal we are seeking” between Iran and world powers. France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that the framework agreement with Iran is a “positive step”, but questions and details still need to be resolved. Hassan Rouhani @HassanRouhani Solutions on key parameters of Iran #nuclear case reached. Drafting to start immediately, to finish by June 30th. #IranTalks 10:26 PM - 2 Apr 2015 3,654 RETWEETS 2,811 FAVORITES Israel voiced discontent on Thursday calling the deal detached from reality adding that it continues to oppose any nuclear program in Iran. “The smiles in Lausanne are detached from wretched reality in which Iran refuses to make any concessions on the nuclear issue and continues to threaten Israel and all other countries in the Middle East,” Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said in a statement after the announcements. “We will continue with our efforts to explain and persuade the world in hopes of preventing a bad (final) agreement.” The group of countries known as “P5+1” – the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – have been trying hammer out an accord with Iran to restrict the country’s nuclear program in return for a lifting the economic blockade imposed by the UN for nearly 18 months. The talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne finished on their eighth day on Thursday. The talks are a big step forward towards rapprochement between Washington and Tehran, who have had uneasy relations since Iran’s 1979 revolution. However, the White House has been criticized by the Republican-led Congress over the Iran talks. In March, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address Congress without White House approval, and blasted the talks in his speech continuing on his mission to derail a much sought-after agreement with Iran. The Israeli PM, who is implacably opposed to a nuclear Tehran, has in the recent past tried to involve the US Congress to impede a diplomatic solution offered by the P5+1 negotiations. Following his visit to Washington, 47 Republican senators signed a letter written by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, which threatened to pull any nuclear deal reached with Iran, once President Barack Obama leaves office. In February, Obama’s cabinet publicly voiced discontent with Israeli’s “selective sharing of information” and “cherry-picking” concerning the P5+1 talks. While Israel has never publicly admitted to having a nuclear arsenal, maintaining the policy of “nuclear ambiguity,” it is widely believed to be the only power possessing the atomic bomb in the Middle East. International Law Professor at Georgetown University Daoud Khairallah believes that the deal engenders trust between Iran and the rest of the world and that it will help create an environment for rational peaceful problem solving in the Middle East. Khairallah also criticized Israel for hypocrisy on the nuclear issue. “They had made an environment of tension based on vilifying Iran and creating in Iran a scarecrow and a nuclear threat to the whole world. Whereas Israel sits on a huge pile of nuclear weapons.” IV. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks.html?_r=0 MIDDLE EAST Iran Agrees to Detailed Nuclear Outline, First Step Toward a Wider Deal By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGERAPRIL 2, 2015 [Video] Federica Mogherini, left, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran announced the details of the agreement. By Associated Press on Publish Date April 2, 2015. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Iran and the United States, along with five other world powers, announced on Thursday a surprisingly specific and comprehensive understanding on limiting Tehran’s nuclear program for the next 15 years, though they left several specific issues to a final agreement in June. After two years of negotiations, capped by eight tumultuous days and nights of talks that appeared on the brink of breakdown several times, Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, announced the plan, which, if carried out, would keep Iran’s nuclear facilities open under strict production limits, and which holds the potential of reordering America’s relationship with a country that has been an avowed adversary for 35 years. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE document Details of Agreement to Limit Iran’s Nuclear ProgramAPRIL 2, 2015 video What’s at Stake in the Iran NegotiationsMARCH 27, 2015 News Analysis: A Foreign Policy Gamble by Obama at a Moment of TruthAPRIL 2, 2015 President Obama received an update on the talks with Iran on Wednesday from Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.Congress Responds Cautiously to Framework, and Demands Right to Review DealAPRIL 2, 2015 The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, left, with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.After Nuclear Agreement, Analysts Weigh Deal’s Effects on Iranian PoliticsAPRIL 2, 2015 slideshow Stress and Hope in TehranMARCH 28, 2015 Disarmament Groups Welcome Iran Framework; Israel Is MistrustfulAPRIL 2, 2015 Mr. Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, a nuclear scientist who played a crucial role in the last stages of the negotiations, said the pact satisfied their primary goal of ensuring that Iran, if it decided to, could not race for a nuclear weapon in less than a year, although those constraints against “breakout” would be in effect only for the first decade of the accord. Photo >From left, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini; Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister; British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond; and Secretary of State John Kerry at a news conference on Thursday in Lausanne, Switzerland. Credit Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone, via Associated Press President Obama, for whom remaking the American relationship with Iran has been a central objective since his 2008 campaign, stepped into the Rose Garden moments later to celebrate what he called “a historic understanding with Iran.” He warned Republicans in Congress that if they tried to impose new sanctions to undermine the effort, the United States would be blamed for a diplomatic failure. He insisted that the deal “cuts off every pathway” for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and establishes the most intrusive inspection system in history. “If Iran cheats,” he said, “the world will know it.” Under the accord, Iran agreed to cut the number of operating centrifuges it has by two-thirds, to 5,060, all of them first-generation, and to cut its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium from around 10,000 kilograms to 300 for 15 years. An American description of the deal also referred to inspections “anywhere in the country” that could “investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility.” But in a briefing, American officials talked about setting up a mechanism to resolve disputes that has not been explained in any detail. In a move not seen since before the Iranian revolution in 1979, and to the surprise of many in both countries, Iranian government broadcasters aired Mr. Obama’s comments live. In parts of Tehran, people cheered and honked car horns as they began to contemplate a life without sanctions on oil and financial transactions, though the issue of when the sanctions are to be removed looms as one of the potential obstacles to a final agreement on June 30. Continue reading the main storyVideo PLAY VIDEO|1:53 Obama Comments on Nuclear Deal With Iran Obama Comments on Nuclear Deal With Iran President Obama spoke from the White House on Thursday after a nuclear deal was announced with Iran. By AP on Publish Date April 2, 2015. Photo by Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times. If that hurdle and the problem of ridding Iran of its huge nuclear fuel stockpile can be fully resolved in the next three months, the preliminary accord will still need to be sold to Iran’s neighbors. The prospect of a deal has inflamed Israel and the Gulf states, alarmed by Iranian muscle-flexing in the Middle East, most recently in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Continue reading the main story There is so much concern that Mr. Obama, in a phone call today to King Salman of Saudi Arabia, invited Arab leaders to Camp David this spring to discuss Iran and the turmoil in the region. Analysts have long been worried that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states might mount their own nuclear programs if they decide that Iran is being allowed to retain too much of its nuclear infrastructure. In a telephone call from Air Force One on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Obama told Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that while the deal was not final, it “represents significant progress towards a lasting, comprehensive solution that cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb and verifiably ensures the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program going forward,” according to an account of the conversation from the White House. Mr. Netanyahu, a strong critic of the deal, was apparently not mollified, and released a statement saying, “A deal based on this framework would threaten the survival of Israel.” Photo Secretary of State John Kerry, in Lausanne, Switzerland, watched President Obama speak Thursday at the White House about the general agreement reached with Iran on its nuclear program. Credit Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski Mr. Zarif, for his part, was careful to play down the notion that anything agreed to here would remake the relationship. Any hint of a broader rapprochement is an enormously sensitive issue among hard-liners in the Iranian military and clerical leaders who have made opposition to the United States the centerpiece of their political narratives. “Iran-U.S. relations have nothing to do with this,” Mr. Zarif said emphatically at a university here, where the agreement was announced. “This was an attempt to resolve the nuclear issue.” While saying he hoped the two countries would find a way to melt away their distrust as the agreement was carried out, he hastened to add, “We have serious differences with the United States.” Now, attention will shift to Mr. Obama and Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, who was elected on a platform of ending sanctions. They share a common task: selling the agreement at home to constituencies deeply suspicious of both the deal and the prospect of signing any accord with an avowed enemy. The White House has promised a lobbying campaign by the president unlike any seen since he pushed through health care legislation. Mr. Zarif and other Iranian officials may have an even harder political argument to win. They will have to overcome objections in the military and scientific establishments, especially because the accord will force them to cut the number of centrifuges enriching uranium by half, put thousands of others in storage and convert two other facilities into research sites that would have virtually no fissile material — the makings of an atom bomb. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for civilian uses only. Continue reading the main story MULTIMEDIA FEATURE Timeline on Iran’s Nuclear Program Whether Iran is racing toward nuclear weapon capabilities is one of the most contentious foreign-policy issues challenging the West. OPEN MULTIMEDIA FEATURE Mr. Zarif seemed to sense the scope of the challenge in how he framed the agreement. He focused on the fact that Iran would not have to dismantle any facilities — something Washington had initially demanded, especially after helping expose one such secret facility, called Fordo, in Mr. Obama’s first year in office. When, late on Thursday, the White House began distributing a description of what amounted to Iranian concessions, an obviously angry Mr. Zarif challenged the American accounting in several posts on Twitter. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story “There is no need to spin using ‘fact sheets’ so early on,” he wrote in one, only an hour or so after. In another, he suggested that sanctions would have to be lifted far earlier than one might think listening to Mr. Kerry, saying that, in essence, all the economic sanctions would be lifted once a final agreement was signed. Continue reading the main story RECENT COMMENTS FR 52 minutes ago One needn't go so far in the past as Neville Chamberlain's famous announcement to find a useful comparison to what is now known about... RCT 52 minutes ago The Iranians want an end to sanctions and a ticket back into the global economic community, and they're paying the price for that entree by... Fred White 54 minutes ago So now the president mocked and condescended to by the Israel Lobby's ventriloquist's dummies in Congress and on the air for "leading from... SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT That could be another issue for the two sides, in that Washington has insisted that the sanctions be removed in a step-by-step manner as Iran fulfills its obligations under the agreement. Continue reading the main story GRAPHIC A Simple Guide to the Nuclear Negotiations With Iran A guide to help you navigate the talks between Western powers and Tehran. OPEN GRAPHIC At another point, Mr. Zarif cautioned that no one had signed anything in Lausanne, and “nobody has obligations now.” That would come after a final agreement. Another problem for Mr. Zarif is that the deal he has agreed to is far more restrictive than one he outlined last July in an interview with The New York Times. At that time, he envisioned essentially keeping Iran’s stockpiles and its sprawling nuclear facilities at the levels they are running under a temporary agreement struck 18 months ago. What he agreed to in Lausanne, at least according to those fact sheets, would drastically cut Iran’s capability for 10 years and then allow it to build up gradually for the next five. After that, Iran would be free to produce as much uranium as it wishes — even building the 190,000 centrifuges that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei talked about last summer. That is bound to be a major concern for Congress, the Israelis and the Arab states, because it amounts to a bet that after 15 years, Iran will be a far more cooperative international player, perhaps under different management. The 5,060 centrifuges is a far higher figure than the administration originally envisioned, when it argued that Iran could possess only a few hundred. But in the final negotiations, Mr. Moniz and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, the M.I.T.-educated head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, agreed that Iran would drastically cut its stockpile of nuclear fuel, from about eight tons to a little over 600 pounds. The giant underground enrichment site at Fordo, which Israeli and some American officials fear is impervious to bombing, would be partly converted to advanced nuclear research and the production of medical isotopes. About two thirds of its centrifuges would be removed. Eventually, foreign scientists would be present. It would have no fissile material that could be used to make a bomb. But perhaps the most important compromise came in a lengthy battle over whether Iran would be allowed to conduct research and development on advanced centrifuges, which are far more efficient than current models. The Iranians won the right to research, but not to use more modern machines for production for the next 10 years. At Arak, which officials feared could produce plutonium, another pathway to a bomb, Iran agreed to redesign a heavy-water reactor in a way that would keep it from producing weapons-usable fuel. CONTINUE READING THE MAIN STORY 916 COMMENTS Those conditions impressed two of the most skeptical experts on the negotiations: Gary Samore and Olli Heinonen of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and members of a group called United Against Nuclear Iran. Mr. Samore, who was Mr. Obama’s top adviser on weapons of mass destruction in his first term as president, said in an email that the deal was a “very satisfactory resolution of Fordo and Arak issues for the 15-year term” of the accord. He had more questions about operations at Natanz and said there was “much detail to be negotiated, but I think it’s enough to be called a political framework.” Mr. Heinonen, the former chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said, “It appears to be a fairly comprehensive deal with most important parameters.” But he cautioned that “Iran maintains enrichment capacity which will be beyond its near-term needs.” Thomas Erdbrink contributed reporting from Tehran, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis from Washington. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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