Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman will lead a U.S. delegation to Vienna next week to resume talks on limiting Iran’s nuclear program, the State Department said.
The talks, which begin Wednesday with meetings between representatives of Iran and the European Union, Britain, France and Germany, are the first and most crucial since a “historic framework” was announced April 2.
Announcement of the framework appears to have helped President Obama with Democratic skeptics of his administration’s negotiating strategy who were working with congressional Republicans to put more pressure on Iran. But it also has highlighted the key differences between Iran and the six world powers seeking to block the Shiite Muslim theocracy in Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has put his weight behind the chorus of Iranian officials insisting the country will not sign a deal without immediate relief from international sanctions, which the U.S. insists will not happen. Iranian officials also have said they will not allow international inspectors to visit military sites, a key provision in the U.S. version of the framework.
Nuclear experts also have pointed out that the framework is silent or ambiguous on issues crucial to meeting the negotiators’ goals, such as whether Iran will give a full accounting of its past work that may have been aimed toward developing a weapon.
The Senate on Monday will begin consideration of a bipartisan bill that would require Obama to submit any nuclear deal with Iran for congressional review and would tie his ability to waive U.S. sanctions to that process. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the legislation on Tuesday 19-0, and Obama has said he would sign it into law.
