Deadline looming, US engages Iran in unprecedented

In a gilded room adorned with summer flowers, royal blue upholstery and the flags of Iran and the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry shook hands with his Iranian counterpart at the Palais Coburg in Vienna on Monday, meeting twice together in less than twenty-four hours to determine whether talks over Iran’s nuclear program might be going anywhere.

 

The bilateral meetings between Iran and the US, represented here by the Obama administration’s three highest-ranking diplomats, are an unprecedented public rapprochement: the two hour-long meetings were preceded only once this year by an exchange between Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Geneva, where the two men, with other world powers, agreed to cap the nuclear impasse for at least six months.

Read More: Deadline looming, US engages Iran in unprecedented direct talks | JPost | Israel News.