Thread by @laurnorman

At a press conference on sidelines of the Quo Vadis seminar in Spain, @JosepBorrellF gave a little insight on #IranDeal negotiations during a press conference a few minutes ago. Translated from Spanish he said that after circulating his proposal on the final text... -1-

"There was an Iranian response that I think was reasonable." That was transmitted to U.S. and the U.S. has not yet responded. "We are awaiting its response and I hope that this response will allow us to complete the negotiations. I hope for that but I can't assure you of it"-2-

"The response was supposed to have come already. A meeting was foreseen in Vienna towards the end of last week. It wasn't possible. It's possible that happens during this week." -3-

Couple of interesting points. @JosepBorrellF is going on record with view of some Euro diplomats that Iran response to EU text was "reasonable." In fact, it goes a tad further than that. Most of the responses I got from Euro sources was that US could work with Iran response.-4-

He's also giving ammo to the Iranian argument now that the U.S. is procrastinating on its response under political, diplomatic pressure. By confirming he'd foreseen a Vienna Joint Commission meeting last week, he's putting pressure on Washington over response timing. -5-

I doubt that was intentional. He might have thought that no-one was paying too much intention to his press conference in Spanish in mid-August. But there we are. But I'm sure Tehran will find his words very useful. -6-

The comments come at Minute 10 here. As far as I can tell, @JosepBorrellF offered these comments on #IranDeal without being asked about it. The event and his previous public Q&A at the seminar focused overwhelmingly on Ukraine. -7-

And here's the text for those who don't speak Spanish and want to run through Google translate. eeas.europa.eu/eeas/quo-vadis… -8-