The Hill News

Iran resumes talks on its nuclear program with the EU, US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany on Thursday and Friday, in Istanbul. Previous talks in early December produced very little in terms of concrete results, but were hailed as successful because it was the first time the parties had met for several months, and discussions were broad and free-ranging. Familiar warnings have already been heard that these talks represent a last opportunity to find compromise, though with a twist. In the past it had been the Israelis who warned of a ticking time bomb, and the Iranians who seemed to believe time was on their side. This time it was President Ahmadinejad who warned his negotiating partners last week that they had little time to come up with concrete and attractive proposals; whilst Israel’s outgoing intelligence head, Meir Dagan, suggested that Iran was now at least four years from achieving a nuclear capability. Whether this had to do with Hillary Clinton’s! claims that sanctions were working, or the claimed effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer virus, or simply the evolving diplomatic calculations of the parties concerned, we may never know.

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