Negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program will spill over into a second week with the two sides still far apart. The U.S. gave a bleak assessment of the latest round of negotiations in Vienna, saying Iranian officials weren’t serious about reviving a 2015 accord that limited Tehran’s atomic activities in return for sanctions relief. “We can’t accept a situation in which Iran accelerates its nuclear program and slow-walks its nuclear diplomacy,’’ the U.S. State Department said. Iran on Sunday said it can’t be expected to stop expanding its nuclear work until there’s an agreement on the U.S. lifting economic sanctions. Tehran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, presented European diplomats with amendments to existing draft documents from previous rounds of talks. The negotiations have stalled since June, when hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi won Iran’s presidential election. European officials, who asked not to be named, expressed disappointment and concern with Tehran’s proposed amendments. “Time is limited,’’ the EU’s top envoy to the talks, Enrique Mora, said. “There is a sense of urgency.” The stumbling negotiations have sent Iran’s national currency to a record low against the U.S. dollar. Talks are set to resume in the middle of this week.
In the Middle East, practical cooperation is gradually replacing the old narrative of Israeli-Arab relations, allowing for agreements to be decoupled from the Palestinian conflict, Zev Chafets writes for Bloomberg Opinion. The change began with the Abraham Accords, that this month led to a energy-for-water deal between Israel and Jordan, the biggest pact between the two countries since they signed a peace agreement 27 years ago. The diplomatic significance here is hard to overstate, Chafets says. NN: Iran now has enough enriched uranium to build several bombs. If it were the Trump administration Iran’s facilitates would. up in Israel created smoke. But Biden and his bunch off merry lefty liberals have warned Israel to stand down. As far as the oil markets any hopes of sanctions lifted and vast amounts of Iranian oil coming to market have been shattered. Also please note Biden is looking the other way as Iran is delivering oil and distillates to N.Korea, Cuba and Venizewalla