“The issue for Tehran is not about reaching agreement, but who can take credit for it,” which affects the timing of potentially reaching a deal, @Azodiac83 “Conservatives want to be able to say, ‘we brought you prosperity.’” diplomatic.substack.com/p/iran-talks-b…
If one were to focus mostly on the Iranian statement tea leaves, one might expect a deal maybe later in June and some sort of implementation day in August. diplomatic.substack.com/p/iran-talks-b…
With the outcome of Iran’s presidential election now seemingly pre-ordained in favor of Raisi, some analysts wondered if that would give the Iranian delegation in Vienna more maneuvering space. But some significant differences still remain to be resolved diplomatic.substack.com/p/iran-talks-b…
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NYT: DOJ did not say which article was being investigated. But the lineup of reporters & timing suggests related to classified info reported in 4/22/2017 article about a doc obtained from Russia by hackers that influenced Comey decision to announce not charging HRC in email probe
“the April 2017 article mentioned a document obtained from Russia by hackers working for Dutch intelligence officials. The document, whose existence was classified, was said to have played a key role in Mr. Comey’s thinking about the Clinton case.”
🧵Several new bits of info for me in this @shustry profile of Derkach. Among them,
Andriy Artemenko, who set up Giuliani’s Dec 2019 trip to Ukraine and apparently lives near DC, “is a longstanding business partner to Erik Prince.” time.com/6052302/andriy…
“Artemenko, a Kyiv-born citizen of Canada, had plenty of contacts to share. One of them was Derkach, who told me he has known Artemenko since at least since 2014.”
In months leading up to April FBI raid, “investigators questioned numerous witnesses about Giuliani’s work in Ukraine. Two of those witnesses told me the investigators were especially interested in his ties to Derkach. ‘They wanted everything – every meeting, every text,’
Ire across the political spectrum at the Guardian Council disqualifications of several Iranian presidential candidates, @amwajmedia reports: “an uncontested win by Raisi in the elections may discredit him and even damage his leadership ambitions.” amwaj.media/media-monitor/…
“This level of dissatisfaction among hardliners with the Guardian Council is unprecedented & indicates that pressure on the political establishment is growing. Hardliners are worried that an election in which there is no competition will lead to a low turnout that will be blamed
“on them and the wider establishment, and place the rival Reformist camp on the high ground.
The discontent in the wider social base from where the hardliners get their support could force Khamenei to issue a decree for the GC to approve Larijani & possibly also Jahangiri
🧵”The way they did their work was suspicious as hell," said one former State Dept official familiar with effort. "They basically conducted it in secret, cutting out the State Dept’s technical experts & the Intel Community, & then trying to brief certain senior officials
“the interagency on their 'tentative conclusions' even before they'd let the department leaders they worked for know an investigation was underway at all."
When scientists looked at the data,... in early Jan, the evidence... appeared inconclusive and misguided, two sources said.
“It smelled like they were just fishing to justify pre-determined conclusions & cut out experts who could critique their 'science,' " said the fmr official...”The reason..became clear when real scientists finally got a chance to see their analysis,” & the case fell apart.
“There was more progress towards reaching an understanding of what the contours of a deal would look like,” the diplomat said.
But he said reaching a deal is not inevitable. And the timing is also uncertain. Unclear if Iran elections will get in the way.
“We have made tangible progress…Both on the nuclear side and the sanctions side, we are now beginning to see the contours of what the final deal could look like,” E3 diplomats.