Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says that his government has nothing to do with the decision to extend the June 30 deadline by only one week, to July 7. He suggested that Iranian negotiators remain unconcerned with deadlines, and will focus on making more progress.
The short extension surprised many. Previous extensions have been 3-6 months, sand it was expected that a similar extension would be announced here. The 7 day extension led to speculation that a deal is extremely close, though the US has denied this to be the case.
The belief is that the US was the one that pushed the July 7 date, with the Obama Administration eager to get the deal to Congress before July 9. After then, Congress has 60 days to review any nuclear deal reached with Iran, but before that it would be only 30 days.
It remains to be seen if the July 7 deadline really means a final deal is possible within the next week, and Zarif’s comments might not be particularly telling either, but just a continuation of the Iranian efforts not to be coaxed into concessions when a deadline is near-finished.
It would have been nice if the reference to 60 days vs 30 days could have been fleshed out just little. What is the driving mechanism for that variance? I profusely apologize for not knowing the details.
I prefer to speculate that the deal would be announced on Saturday – just before all those small scare ISIS attacks occur, of course.
Perhaps it has something to do with Congress's month-long vacation in August, à la française.
Duh…silly me to forget the dictum that Congress never interfere with their vacations.