December 13, 2013 | Quote
Iranians Pull Out of Nuke Talks
Iranian negotiators abruptly ended nuclear talks with Western powers in Vienna on Friday just a day after the Obama administration announced tighter sanctions on Tehran.
Iran had threatened that new or tighter sanctions would nullify the recently reached Geneva interim deal, which is not yet in effect.
The Iranians abruptly “halted” the talks and left Vienna so that they could consult with higher-level officials about how to proceed with talks following the tighter sanctions, which were announced Thursday morning by the U.S. Treasury Department.
“The Iranian negotiators interrupted the talks with the [P5+1] for consultations in Tehran,” a negotiator said on Thursday, according to Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency.
“America’s move is against the spirit of the Geneva deal,” Iranian chief negotiator Abbas Araqchi reportedly told the Iranian press. “We are evaluating the situation and will make the appropriate response.”
Iranian and Western negotiators were in the middle of talks about ways to implement the interim agreement when the sanctions were announced, according to experts.
The “wild thing about today’s action [is that] Treasury officials [are] negotiating terms of [the Joint Plan of Action] w/ Iran right now in Vienna,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies expert Jonathan Schanzer tweeted on Thursday afternoon.
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“This was an action taken by the executive,” FDD’s Schanzer told the Free Beacon on Friday. “What this shows is that the White House is trying to on the one hand put a halt on new sanctions to placate the Iranians but enforce existing sanctions to placate Congress and their constituents. It’s a fine line.”