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The Back Channel Reporting and dispatches from Washington to the Middle East SearchHome About More from Al-Monitor Post navigation ← Older posts Read Back Channel in its new location Posted on June 16, 2014 by Laura Rozen For the latest Back Channel posts. Read them on Al-Monitor.com at www.al-monitor.com/pulse/back-channel Posted in Politics Burns to join Iran nuclear talks in Vienna Posted on June 15, 2014 by Laura Rozen US Deputy Secretary of State Williams Burns will join talks between Iran, the U.S. and European Union in Vienna on Monday, US officials said. Burns was seen on the plane Sunday traveling with the US delegation, led by Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, to Vienna. He and Sherman are expected to meet Monday with Iranian and European Union negotiators. Sherman will stay on for nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 expected to go til Friday, as efforts intensify to reach a final nuclear accord by July 20. We’re at a critical point in these negotiations, and we’re going to work as hard as we possibly can to see if we can get to an agreement here,” a senior U.S. Administration official told Al-Monitor Monday. Deputy Burns will be joining for meetings on the 16th, including an expected trilateral with Iran and the EU.” We’ve always said our diplomatic efforts would continue to intensify, and they have,” the US official said. This is another example of that effort. And we’ve been clear that various members of our negotiating team – especially the Deputy, given his history working on this issue with the Iranians – will participate in various meetings throughout this process.” Burns previously led secret US bilateral talks with Iran last fall. But last week the State Department announced that he and Sherman were co-leading the US team to bilateral talks with Iran in Geneva in order to break what reportedly has been a deadlock in the negotiations. As negotiators intensify efforts to reach a final nuclear accord by July 20, the US bilateral and P5+1 nuclear negotiating teams seem to have merged, and the US Iran contacts on a nuclear deal become less secret. The US will also this week open contacts with Iran about the security crisis in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Burns, when he traveled to Oman for secret nuclear talks with Iran last year, reportedly traveled on an unmarked US government plane. But he, Sherman and their team were seen Sunday at the Washington Dulles airport business lounge awaiting their flight to Vienna, with no apparent attempt at hiding his presence. Posted in Politics , Security | Tagged EU , Iran , P5+1 , Wendy Sherman , William Burns US energy envoy Pascual to step down Posted on June 13, 2014 by Laura Rozen US Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs Carlos Pascual announced Friday he will step down in July, U.S. officials told the Back Channel. The departure plans come as oil proces have spiked amid the new security crisis in Iraq, as al Qaeda-linked the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) overtook the city of Mosul. Pascual, a former US envoy to Mexico and Ukraine, stood up the new energy affairs bureau three years ago, but was never confirmed. He is expected to head next to Columbia University. Pascual’s deputy Amos Hochstein is considered a possible nominee to succeed him. Posted in Business , Politics , Security | Tagged Amos Hochstein , Carlos Pascual , energy , Iran , Iraq , ISIS , Mexico , oil , State Department , Syria , Ukraine , United States US, Iran hold ‘intensive, useful’ talks as negotiations intensify Posted on June 10, 2014 by Laura Rozen Washington, D.C.__ U.S. and Iranian nuclear negotiators have held two days of intensive.. useful” talks, but gaps still remain, Iranian officials said Tuesday. The talks, lasting 12 hours over two days in Geneva, were intensive…but useful,” and held in a good atmosphere,” an Iranian diplomat told Al-Monitor after talks ended Tuesday. Gaps are still there. Consultations will continue.” The US-Iran meetings were business-like, and we covered all the issues that we have been discussing so far in Vienna,” a second Iranian official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor Tuesday. The exchange helped us better understand each others’ positions.” After these meetings in Geneva and bilateral meetings with the French, Russians and the Germans in the next few days, we hope we will be better prepared to start the talks next week in Vienna,” the second Iranian official said. Iranian negotiators are due to hold a bilateral meeting with French counterparts in Geneva on Wednesday, and with Russia in Rome on Thursday and Friday. Iran will hold a bilateral meeting with Germany’s political director in Tehran Sunday, ahead of the next round of final deal talks between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna June 16-20. The US delegation to Geneva, led by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, has not yet publicly commented on the bilateral consultations with Iran, which were held at an undisclosed location. (Journalists in Geneva said they believed the talks were being held at Geneva’s President Wilson hotel, where the US delegation was thought to be staying, but the hotel would not confirm that.) State Department and European Union spokespeople stressed that the series of bilateral meetings underway this week were all in support of the comprehensive deal negotiations being carried out by the P5+1 under the coordination of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The talks are now intensifying, they said, as the parties aim to see if they can reach a final accord by July 20, when a six month interim deal expires, or will need to be extended for up to another six months. The E3/EU+3’s diplomatic efforts to reach a comprehensive solution are now intensifying,” Michael Mann, Ashton’s spokesman, told Al-Monitor Tuesday. They have always taken place at different levels and in different formats and included bilateral meetings in support of the central E3/EU+3 nuclear negotiations led by [High Representative] Ashton.” We’ve always said that we would engage the Iranians bilaterally if it can help advance our efforts, of course acting in total coordination with the P5+1 and the EU,” State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf told journalists at the State Department press briefing Monday. We also said that there was going to be an intensification of diplomatic efforts, particularly getting closer to July 20 th ,” Harf said If we’re going to seriously test whether we can reach a diplomatic solution here, we need to engage in as much active diplomacy as possible.” Meantime, France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday that it would be hard to close wide gaps over the size of Iran enrichment capacity in a final deal by next month. We are still hitting a wall on one absolutely fundamental point which is the number of centrifuges which allow enrichment,” Fabius told France Inter radio Tuesday, Reuters reported . We say that there can be a few hundred centrifuges, but the Iranians want thousands so we’re not in the same framework.” The timing of Fabius’ public comments, as the US held the first lengthy, one on one talks with Iran since last year, raised some eyebrows in Washington. Asked about them, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said Tuesday the focus should remain on the behind the scenes” talks, not public demands.” Subconsciously, [Fabius] hates when [the] US-Iran meet bilaterally for the usual French reasons,” Jeremy Shapiro, a Brookings fellow in foreign policy studies, told Al-Monitor. More consciously, he doesn’t trust the US as negotiators and believes he plays an important role in shoring them up and ensuring that they don’t give away the store.” France’s new political director Nicolas de Riviere will take part in bilateral discussions with Iranian negotiators in Geneva on Wednesday, Araghchi told Iran’s IRNA...