The U.S. and other world powers negotiating with Iran over the future of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program ought to be wrapping up discussions this week in anticipation of meeting a March 31 deadline. If this is to be the last shot at a deal, it could hardly have begun less auspiciously.
The week began with the head of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency announcing that his inspectors could not verify Iran’s claims that its existing nuclear program is meant specifically for power generation and other peaceful purposes.
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“We are still not in a position to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is [there for a] peaceful purpose,” said IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in an appearance at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington on Monday. “Progress has been very limited in clarifying issues with possible military dimensions.”
Amano said that in order to ensure that the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful in nature, U.N. inspectors ought to be given the authority to conduct unannounced “snap” inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. That authority, he said, is “very much needed” and would give inspectors “more powerful tools to look at activities not declared to us.”
This suggestion did not go over well with Iranian authorities. On Tuesday, Iranian state television blasted Amano’s suggestion, saying that snap inspections are “illegal.” Behrouz Kamalvandi, the Iranian regime’s spokesperson for issues related to the nuclear program said that Amano was not helping the negotiators reach a deal. “It would be much better if Amano only talked about the IAEA's seasonal and monthly reports," he said.
As if things were not complicated enough, on Tuesday morning, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel has been actively spying on the nuclear negotiations, using informants as well as intercepts to get access to inside information about the trajectory of the talks. The report alleged that, as part of an ongoing effort by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to derail a deal that he insists will be dangerous for his county, Israel had also provided information meant to be secret to members of the U.S. Congress.
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Israeli adamantly denied that it had spied on the talks and shared sensitive information with Congressional Republicans. Key GOP figures, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-OK) and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) said that they had received no such information from Israeli representatives.
The report came as Netanyahu has been trying, with little apparent success, to mend fences with the Obama administration. The already-sour relationship between Netanyahu and Obama became markedly worse early this month when Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of Congress at the request of Obama’s Republican opponents and essentially lobbied against the deal that the Obama administration is negotiating.
Related: How Iran Is Taking Over the Middle East
Talks on the nuclear deal are set to resume in Switzerland on Wednesday, and one of the key factors in their ultimate success or failure could be the ability of the negotiators to block out the increasing number of distractions being thrown at them from outside parties.
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