TORY SUMMARY

by David Ignatius

As the Iran nuclear talks reach roughly the halfway point in the six-month timetable for negotiating a comprehensive agreement, both sides report slow, steady progress in closing gaps – but no deal yet.

Second, Iran continues to mix its pragmatic stance in the negotiations with stridently anti-Western rhetoric, most recently in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s March 21 message for the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz.

Third, a sign of Iran’s pragmatism, amid its leader’s bombastic rhetoric, was Salehi’s comment that Iran had “no problem” with opening its military site at Parchin to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Fourth, negotiators on both sides appear to be taking seriously the six-month bargaining timetable set in the interim deal reached in Geneva last November that temporarily froze Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran currently has 19,000 centrifuges; how many would have to be mothballed?

The details of a possible deal are visible, but not yet the will in revolutionary Iran to compromise.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Apr-24/254185-an-iran-deal-is-close-but-were-not-there-yet.ashx#ixzz2zyYXXIRz
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)