The White House claimed this evening that a New York Times report saying that the U.S. and Iran have for the first time agreed to one-on-one nuclear talks isn’t true.
The NYT quotes unnamed senior administration officials as saying Iran wants to wait after the presidential election is over to sit down and start talking — “a result of intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of President Obama’s term,” states the paper.
“It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement issued by the White House minutes ago.
“We continue to work with the P-5+1 on a diplomatic solution and have said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally,” Vietor said. “The President has made clear that he will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and we will do what we must to achieve that.”
“It has always been our goal for sanctions to pressure Iran to come in line with its obligations. The onus is on the Iranians to do so, otherwise they will continue to face crippling sanctions and increased pressure.”
There was no coverage of the story yet on Iranian news outlets.
I don’t think anybody knows the full story yet. It’s possible the NYT reporter simply got things wrong. I don’t agree with the NYT on lots of political issue, but this isn’t the sort of thing they would misreport.
Or it’s possible that the White House didn’t want to disseminate this information quite yet and has to now backpedal publicly. (I consider this more likely.)
I suspect we’ll be hearing more soon.
Bonus: If the NYT and the White House start calling each others liar, it will be a perfect “popcorn moment”!
You are right the obama admin does not want this ome out just yet; they have been approaching Iran to help the re-election of obama; he promised to drop sanctions, which he will keep ‘dropped’ in place should he be re-elected; promised he would stop Israel from attacking Iran.
He warned them that a Romney admin would add more sanctions and, would allow Israel to attack if not assist them in the attack.
Obama has sent an associate of Jarrett to directly approach the Ayatollah for quite some time. The NYT jumped the gun; this suppose to be news sometimes next week.
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Deny
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Accuse
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We’re bombing them in 7-10 days. This story was a leak to help prime the pump.
They may be saving an announcement for the day of the foreign policy debate so that Romney has no opportunity to learn about and attack the specifics. They could either make the announcement a couple of hours before the debate with something vague and grand like “Iran and United states reach an agreement ending Iran’s nuclear program”, or they could have Barak announce it himself in the debate for a dramatic “gotcha” moment after Romney accuses him of doing nothing on Iran. The media would run wild with that. This administration has had no problem with changing the official story at a second’s notice (see Bengazi) so we (or more specifically Romney) should be ready for anything.
I agree with you, you stated it better than I could!
WHO CAN TRUST OBAMA TO PROTECT AMERICAN INTERESTS IN PEACE TALKS WITH IRAN?
After Benghazi, it’s hard to trust Obama with anything. His peace talks will, no doubt, backfire — as has the Arab Spring and the Obama economy.
If indeed there are US-Iran “peace talks,” they are for the purpose of:
1) Giving Obama’s campaign the illusion of a president in charge of foreign policy;
2) Producing a bogus agreement which will claim to protect Israel from Iranian nukes on the condition that Israel agrees to a grossly inflated “Palestinian” wish list;
3) Trying to make Israel out as a “warmonger” if it does not accept whatever half-assed deal Obama claims to have obtained, and thereby forestalling an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Obama has wanted Iran to go nuclear from the beginning, as a means for pressuring Israel to eviscerate itself in exchange for worthless guarantees.
Read The Wohn/Dinnerjacket letters sent between 2009-2010.
In spite of initially denying they do exist and they’re quite public.
Good old fashioned Chicago politics in the form of same old combo:White House and NYT “tag-team” deceit. (One hits low the other hits high while the rubes cheer)
The NYT “getting out the messiah/Noble Peace Prize smog vote” for peacemaker Obama, while the denial is hardly heard in time, and Poof! Once again truth is the real victim. We do remember when truth was respected and expected here in America; those of us that wore knickers when we grew up.
Could this “leak” be a little payback by the intelligence community for Obama throwing them under the bus over Libya, or by the State Dept. for trying to do the same to Hillary?