Almost exactly one year ago reports surfaced that Valerie Jarrett was engaged in “secret” negotiations with Iran as Obama’s personal emissary.
The reports originated with Iranian bloggers, and was reported also by The New York Times. The Obama administration categorically denied the reports.
Now Israeli television is reporting similar involvement, via the Times of Israel, ‘Geneva talks a facade, US-Iran worked secretly on deal for past year’:
The Geneva negotiations between the so-called P5+1 powers and Iran are a mere “facade,” because the terms of a deal on Iran’s nuclear program have been negotiated in talks between a top adviser to President Barack Obama and a leading Iranian nuclear official that have continued in secret for more than a year, Israeli television reported Sunday….
White House spokesman Bernadette Meehan was quoted by Haaretz as saying that the report was “absolutely, 100 percent false.”
The report, which relied on unnamed senior Israeli officials, said the US team to the secret talks was led by Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. Her primary interlocutor, the report said, was the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi. The talks have been taking place in various Gulf states.
In the course of the talks, the report said, the Americans offered the Iranians a series of “confidence-building measures,” which underlined American readiness to conclude a deal and undercut sanctions pressure.
It was the deal discussed in these secret talks, the report said, that the Americans then brought to Geneva earlier this month, where it was largely adopted by the P5+1 nations — the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, plus Germany.
It’s hard to know what’s true and not. It does make sense that there have been secret backchannels established, because both Israel and France seemed surprised as John Kerry was ready to sign a weak agreement with Iran. The Israelis in particularly were furious that they had been misled as to the terms until the last minute.
Whether Jarrett was involved, though, is another thing.
(Featured image source: YouTube)
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