Tag Archives: Catherine Ashton

By Mansour Salsabili

Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

(This commentary appeared first on GlobalPost.com)

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Continuing to insist on sanctions against Iran will produce a bad deal for America.

Why? Because this week Iran is putting on the table in Baghdad a number of concrete and tension-reducing offers in response to the earlier requests of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

These offers will have the strong support of Russia and China, and may attract positive votes from other European delegations as well. This will leave the US administration, which cannot force Congress to end sanctions, in the corner and in a passive position in any future talks.

In the second round of the current negotiation — between Iran and the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — any forward looking plan will need to be comprehensive, including all aspects of a final deal. However a comprehensive approach cannot be implemented in a single shot or in haste, but rather in a step-by-step process that produces concrete results for each step in turn. The final deal may commence from particular unresolved issues involving the Iranian nuclear program and then extend to more general questions of regional cooperation and even peace in the Middle East. Continue reading >