Iran Nuclear Deal Details Hazy: US and Iran Telling Different Stories

Public Statement on Deal Only a Fraction of the Pact

Capping the nuclear framework deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini both laid out a “joint statement” on the framework, with a handful of “parameters” from the discussion.

Which was fine, but those were only a small fraction of the overall framework agreement. Since then, however, US and Iranian officials have gone public with more details, and while the core stuff is all the same, there are some key disconnects.

That was not unanticipated, as the two sides had apparently agreed to issue separate statements emphasizing their own points. As one official put it they “understood that we had different narratives, but we wouldn’t contradict each other.”

Apparently eager to make the deal quickly, the two sides didn’t want to spend time talking up what would be made public and what wouldn’t. US officials, however, issued a huge list of concessions they claim Iran made, and Zarif has denied that some of them are true, and dismissed others as spin. He didn’t go into detail though.

This is sparking a new round of speculation about what the deal that was actually made was. Though both nations were keen to keep the full framework out of the papers, they will likely continue to struggle with that secrecy until they actually make it clear what the deal was.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.