Talks aimed at a resolution between Iran and the West over their nuclear program collapsed today, with no progress and no timetable for future talks. Overall the negotiations sounded like a huge waste of time. Western officials expressed disappointment, but not surprise. They reiterated that their proposals, including a modified deal under which Iran would [...]

Bill Richardson, the utility diplomat on the Democratic bench, has secured a deal with North Korea to allow nuclear inspectors back in their Yongbyon nuclear facility. They also agreed to allow fuel rods to ship to an outside country, probably South Korea, for enrichment. And, the US will receive some remains from Korean War-era soldiers: [...]

This week, Iran will meet with European Union negotiators about its nuclear program. Predictably, right at that time, the country announced it had the ability to make yellowcake uranium on its own. Iran announced on Sunday that its entire nuclear fuel cycle is now self-sufficient. With two-day talks beginning in Geneva tomorrow between six world [...]

Iran has agreed to the first talks about its nuclear program in over a year. Iranian nuclear negotiator Said Jalili agreed to hold talks “sometime after November 10.” The meeting will probably take place in Vienna. (European Union foreign policy chief Catherine) Ashton described the letter as “a significant move” and said diplomats were now [...]

In the past week, we saw Jeffrey Goldberg start what appeared to be a coordinated PR campaign on behalf of Israel to prepare the ground for a potential military strike on Iran’s nuclear processing facilities. Now, according to a New York Times report, the Obama Administration is working to pre-empt that, by stressing how far [...]

Reform leaders in Iran abruptly called off a protest set for the one-year anniversary of what they consider stolen elections that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second term, indicative of the struggles of a reform movement which has been successfully repressed by the ruling Islamic leadership. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi told their followers [...]

The Obama Administration waited many hours – about half a day – to respond to the apparent Iranian deal with Turkey and Brazil on a nuclear fuel swap that adheres largely to the offer put on the table by Western powers to Iran last October. The first unofficial response came in this article, suggesting it [...]

Maybe the year-plus of negotiating paid off after all. Early this morning, Iran signed a deal with Turkey and Brazil that would enable it to pursue a civilian nuclear energy strategy, while swapping the fuel on Turkish soil to calm fears that it was enriching uranium for military purposes. Iran said it had agreed to [...]

The President continues to make progress at the nuclear security summit. Today he announced a trilateral agreement between the North American countries to convert Mexico’s nuclear reactor research away from highly-enriched, or weaponized, uranium. And the communique expected later today stressing commitments to nuclear security will get followed up with enforcement mechanisms to keep track [...]

The deal with Ukraine for them to remove their highly enriched uranium stockpiles is one of those under-the-radar improvements that actually significantly affects us all but which garners little attention. The deal here is that Ukraine, a former Russian republic, has perhaps the largest stockpile of fissile material anywhere in the world, and eliminating the [...]

After a brief hope that Iran was nudging back toward a deal on uranium enrichment with the West, the US and Germany acknowledged after a meeting that the Islamic Republic won’t reach agreement, leading to probable sanctions. But US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Iran had failed to address Western concerns and suggested it was [...]