Iran announced yesterday that bilateral negotiations with the United States proceeded “in good atmosphere” despite lingering gaps on Tehran’s uranium enrichment and uncertainty over economic sanctions being lifted with a new US Congress in play for the coming year. The P5+1 powers and Iran failed to strike a deal by the self-imposed deadline last month…
The presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Iran attended the inauguration of a railway that will connect the three countries and serve as an additional conduit to the Persian Gulf. The ceremony took place in the Turkmen frontier village of Ak-Yayla, and marked the beginning of operations of the nearly 930 kilometer (578 mile) route. The…
Multi-billion dollar Indian conglomerate Essar Group will seek to work around Western sanctions to broker an oil-for-steel deal with Iran. India is currently one of the National Iranian Oil Company’s largest clients, while Iran continues to purchase significant quantities of Indian steel in spite of comprehensive sanctions that complicate transacting business with NIOC or other…
Today marked the deadline for P5+1 and Iranian negotiators to come to terms on an agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program. The probability that a “permanent” agreement would be reached in accordance with the deadline was virtually zero as Iranian negotiators had previously declared a deal before November 24 “impossible” and Western negotiators had already begun to…
With the deadline for the Iranian nuclear deal approaching on Monday, negotiators are scrambling to keep up the pressure on the regime to accede to concessions now rather than parley for another extension. US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that negotiators push for a deal by Monday and to refuse talks of yet another…
Representatives from Iran, the US, and the EU began an unscheduled day of talks after reported unresolved disagreements threatened to overturn the framework before deadline, which is looming in just two weeks. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and EU envoy and former foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met in…
A new development in negotiations with Iran has provoked new optimism in a deal that had stagnated over after Tehran blocked IAEA access to select facilities. Iran has tentatively agreed to send the vast majority of its uranium to Russia, should a wider deal be reached with the West. Upon arrival in Moscow, the uranium…
UN weapons inspectors from the IAEA are continuing to be blocked by the Iranian government from examining their enrichment facilities, where Western politicians believe to be laboratories for compiling fissile materials for a nuclear weapon. With the deadline for the deal to lift sanctions coming once again at the end of November, prospects are not…
The new deadline on November 24 for Iran is rapidly approaching, and still large questions about basic elements of the deal are prevalent in the media. Iran has released new statements prohibiting any approval in negotiations on “backward steps,” specifically the enrichment of uranium and number of active centrifuges. The comments were made by Deputy…
Talks surrounding the state of Iran’s nuclear program have resumed in Vienna. Negotiators on both sides predicted the meeting’s success in the days leading up to the meeting, though early indications show that fundamental differences still exist between the two sides. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has alleged that it has accepted Western stipulations that only…
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