third round of Iran talks in Vienna seems to have wrapped up. Russian perm rep to IAEA says a fourth round will convene at the end of next week. In the meantime, experts will continue drafting
He further suggests participants have given themselves an aspirational goal of seeing if they can reach an understanding in three weeks. (caution: almost all of these deadlines in jcpoa talks were blown through.)
photo of Joint Commission meeting today as third round wraps up, courtesy of @AlainMatton. Next JC meeting apparently expected the end of next week.
E3 statement: “We have much work, and little time, left. Against that background, we would have hoped for more progress this week. We have yet to come to an understanding on the most critical points. Success is by no means guaranteed, but not impossible.”
Russia’s Ulyanov: “We should not expect breakthroughs in the days to come. We need simply to continue diplomatic, day-to-day work, & we have all the reasons to expect that..the final outcome will be successful & it will come quite soon, in a few wks.” reuters.com/article/us-ira…
“The break in talks was widely expected as diplomats said officials from several countries are also involved in the Group of Seven foreign ministers’ meeting in London that begins on Monday and ends on Wednesday.” reuters.com/article/us-ira…
Iran DepFM Araghchi: “Discussions have reached a maturity & have become clearer. Distances & differences have become more specific & clearer...The process is slow, but it is moving forward... We cannot fully predict when we will reach an agreement.”
would seem the expectations setting between the different parties after the third sound seems a lot closer together than the last time. general consensus: it is a slog.
Notable: almost every week, there is some explosive event that seems like it could impact the talks—the natanz sabotage op, the Zarif tapes...—and yet they seem to just keep chugging along.
How were the final days of talks?
“Not bad,” one diplomat at the Vienna talks told me. “Rumors of alleged stagnation are wrong.”
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“The search warrants executed...at Giuliani’s NYC apartment & office sought evidence related to Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whom Giuliani pushed to oust...as well as communications with any U.S. government officials...re: the frmr amb or her position”
“The warrant also sought evidence related to 3 Giuliani associates who were arrested in 2019 on campaign-finance charges— Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman & David Correia—as well as 2 lawyers close to Giuliani, Victoria Toensing & Joseph diGenova; & conservative columnist John Solomon.”
👉🏼”Some of the Giuliani associates mentioned in the warrant entered into financial arrangements with some of the Ukrainian officials named.
In the spring of 2019, Toensing signed an agreement to represent Shokin...Toensing also signed contracts that spring to rep Lutsenko & Kulyk
State's Ned Price on Iran talks in Vienna: It is fair to say that we are not on the cusp of any breakthrough
Price adds: There has been a heavy focus on what US would do (if return for return deal reached). Think what is often omitted from that discussion is the other side...
What Iran would need to do to...
Price: Iran nuclear program has been galloping ahead since previous admin left nuclear deal in 2018. Iran in recent report has 10 times amount of enriched uranium permitted under the deal...breakout time was a full year when deal was in effect. now reportedly a matter of months.
“1 of the warrants for Giuliani’s devices indicated..federal investigators were searching for communications between him & several Ukrainian officials, inc. former pres. Petro Poroshenko, & 2 frmr prosecutors who had helped Giuliani collect info about the Bidens in Ukraine,”
“The investigative actions on Wednesday were expansive, with agents also serving a grand jury subpoena on Giuliani’s executive assistant, two people with knowledge of the matter said.”
FBI agents also executed a search warrant Wed. morning at home of Victoria Toensing, a lawyer close to Giuliani who had dealings with several Ukrainians involved in the hunt for info on the Bidens, acc. to people with knowledge of that warrant. The warrant was for her cellphone.
NYT: Federal investigators executed a search warrant Wed. at the Upper East Side apartment of Rudolph Giuliani, stepping up a criminal investigation into his dealings in Ukraine, 3 people w/ knowledge of matter said.
seized Giuliani’s electronic devices nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyr…
“federal authorities have been largely focused on whether Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, who at the same time were helping Giuliani search for dirt on Trump’s political rivals.”
“The United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan and the F.B.I. had for months sought to secure a search warrant for Mr. Giuliani’s phones.”
🧵here’s thing. on anything tangentially iran related, the opponents to this US admin are going to try make it politically toxic, 24/7, until the end of eternity. this admin has nothing to do with this zarif tape leak. still, it seems it would behoove it, to push back fast &hard
which, admittedly, since it has no forewarning what this thing is, would require basically having people doing it all the time. anyhow, result of not having that is, the story tonight is essentially kerry denies beating his wife. which is irritating and unfair. and stupid.
and i think the NYT among others had a probably inadvertent role on US side in making that the de facto headline and they should examine why that is.
State's Ned Price says doesn't comment on purported leaked material, doesn't have anything to say about authenticity, accuracy of or motives for leaking of Zarif tapes. But on excerpts that purport to suggest Russia tried to undermine deal, he suggests history does not bear out
You mentioned the talks in the previous iteration,
Iran and Russia. For both of those, the proof point we point to, that gives some degree of confidence, is the JCPOA itself. Whatever the geopolitical dynamic that culminated with july 2015 agreement, we were able to negotiate
successfully with Iran in the past in the context of P5+1. That is precisely the context we are in now
Focus today – in the talks in Vienna -- whether we can do so again.