CFR Daily News Brief 9/26 Talks on Iran's Nuclear Dispute Resume

Daily News Brief September 26, 2013

Top of the Agenda: Talks on Iran's Nuclear Dispute Resume

Diplomats of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany will meet with Iran's foreign minister on Thursday in the first test of Tehran's intentions to resolve the dispute over its nuclear ambitions (AP). President Hassan Rouhani said Iran wants to propose a timeline of three to six months to conclude negotiations (WaPo). Separately, Iran's state news agency backtracked from Rouhani's acknowledgment of the Holocaust Wednesday, accusing CNN of fabricating portions of its interview with Iran's president and denying that Rouhani said the word Holocaust or called the slaughter of millions of Jews "reprehensible" (Politico).

Analysis

"I came away willing to believe that Rouhani is a pragmatist. ('Moderate' is a misleading term for the head of a quasi-theocratic regime.) He wants to end his country's isolation. But it remains unclear whether he has the authority to act on behalf of his government," Fareed Zakaria writes in the Washington Post.

"In the next few weeks, in a variety of conclaves and conferences, Iranian and western diplomats will test each other. It remains to be seen whether the international community will be comfortable with the new Iran retaining its nuclear plants. It seems implausible that Mr. Rouhani can escape the noose of the sanctions without offering some measurable concessions on the scope and scale of the growing nuclear program," CFR Senior Fellow Ray Tekeyh writes for the Financial Times.

"If Rouhani's cabinet is to be judged on its record of human rights, Pourmohammadi's appointment is catastrophic. Accepting it without protest is tantamount to indifference to justice. However, there is also Iran's path to democracy to consider," writes Akbar Ganji for al-Jazeera.