Official: Iran confronts US at nuke talks over GOP letter
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LAUSANNE - Iranian diplomats twice confronted their American counterparts about an open letter from Republican senators who warned that any nuclear deal could expire the day President Barack Obama leaves office, a senior US official said Monday.
The official, noting the administration's warnings when the letter first surfaced, said the GOP intervention was a new issue in the tense negotiations facing an end-of-month deadline for a framework agreement.
The letter came up in nuclear talks Sunday between senior US and Iranian negotiators, the official said, and the Iranians raised it again in discussions Monday led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Zarif was quoted by Iranian state media after the meeting as saying the topics included the potential speed of a softening of US economic sanctions and the new issue of the letter from the senators. "It is necessary that the stance of the US administration be defined about this move," he was quoted as saying.
